'The Culture of Building in Vienna 1938-1959': a reassessment

摘要

The archive of the Zentralvereinigung der Architektinnen Österreichs (Central Association of Austrian Architects) provides a new generation of female researchers with highly interesting and novel source material that enables a rather neglected period of Austrian architectural history to be finally reassessed. Founded in 1907, the Zentralvereinigung der Architekten Österreichs was dissolved following the Austrian "annexation" in summer 1938 and its members were transferred to the Berlin-based "Reichskammer der bildenden Künste". The membership process was a highly bureaucratic act, the initial registration was still made through the ZV. Following this step, in detailed questionnaires information had to be given also about religious affiliations, proof of (racial) ancestry and, where applicable, membership of the NSDAP (Nazi Party). Architects had to become members of the RdbK in order to practice their profession and to be allocated everyday work materials. After the end of the war the precisely kept documentation was transferred to the successor organisation, the "Professional Association of Visual Artists", within which the ZV was newly founded as a section in 1945 before again becoming an independent association in 1959. With the passing of the legislation on the state registration of architects in 1957 membership of the association was required to enter competitions. Those who had been members earlier also had to undergo a strict admissions procedure, which included providing details about their political activities under National Socialism. The discovery of this documentation, long believed lost, which covers the period from the admission process for member- ship of the Reichskammer to the post-war denazification procedures, led the association to commission a professional examination of its archive, under the direction of art historian Ingrid Holzschuh. The first results have now been published in book form. This not only showcases a period of the association's history, which was previously known more from anecdotes than from facts, but also provides information about the everyday cultural history of an entire profession. Gabriele Kaiser devoted herself to the publishing activities of the ZV, which from 1946 onwards once again provided important contributions to the architecture debate with the journal "Der Bau". Monika Platzer took a close look at the cultural role of the ZV after 1945, which enabled her to disprove both the Austrian narrative of the reconstruction period as a phase of standstill as well as the earlier consensus that Austria's move in the direction of internationality only began around the mid-1960s. Ursula Prokop looked at the Jewish and politically persecuted members of the ZV. Katharina Roith-meier analysed the membership lists from 1937 and 1945 in order to reveal the grave impact of the NS system. In the process many previously unknown biographies of dozens of women architects came to light, the paths and blind alleys they took are traced by Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber. At long last the architectural history of an epoch previously handed down by male architects has been rewritten by a new generation of women researchers.