(1897-2000)

A flu finally squelched the rebellious spirit that for 103 years kept Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky anchored to life. Born in Vienna, against the wishes of her family she studied architecture under the tutelage of Josef Hoffman. Her role in the Siedlungsbewegung awakened her interest in the social reach of the profession, a concern which in 1926 would bring her to Frankfurt to collaborate in the housing program led by Ernst May. Her name would ever be associated with this city, as the kitchen she designed for the dwellings of the German architect definitively changed this domestic space. While erecting hospitals and schools in France and Turkey, her political commitment led her to follow May to Moscow to build the new Soviet cities and help in the resistance against Hitler. Dynamic and consistent with her ideals, in 1988 she refused to receive the medal of honor of the Sciences and the Arts of Vienna from President Kurt Waldheim, a former SS official, but did not hesitate to celebrate her centenary dancing the waltz in this city’s Museum of Decorative Arts, which had held a retrospective exhibition of her work four years before.