Interweaving Histories
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Interweaving Histories argarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897- whom she would later marry. In M2000) was the first female Aust- 1930, with the political situation rian architect and an activist in the in Germany becoming unstab- anti-Nazi resistance movement. She le, Schütte-Lihotzky and her new studied architecture under Oskar husband joined Ernst May and a Strand, a pioneer of affordable ho- team of 17 architects – dubbed the using for Vienna’s working class, “May Brigade” – in response to an and after graduation worked with invitation from the USSR to tra- Adolf Loos to design residential vel to Moscow and design low-cost properties for World War I vete- housing for workers. Aside from rans. In 1926, Lihotzky was invi- short business trips to Japan and Crowds cheer Hitler’s arrival in Vienna ted to join the Municipal Building China, Schütte-Lihotzky stayed in (March 1938) Department in Frankfurt by arc- the Soviet Union until 1937. Under hitect and city planner Ernst May. Stalin’s leadership, as the situati- At the time, May’s work centered on there, too, became precarious, around Frankfurt’s housing shor- she and her husband again moved tage. May, Lihotzky and the rest of – first to London and, later, to Pa- May’s architectural staff were suc- ris. Paris was not the couple’s final cessful in integrating functionality destination; lacking jobs, Schütte- and humanity into thousands of Lihotzky and her husband were of- the city’s affordable housing units. fered teaching positions by friend While Lihotzky’s work continued and exiled German architect Bru- with the design of kindergartens, no Taut, at the time a professor at student housing, schools and pub- XLI*MRI%VXW%GEHIQ]MR¿WXERFYP Atatürk with students lic buildings, her most recognized (June 1937) achievement was the 1926 inven- y the early 1930s in Turkey, tion of the Frankfurt Kitchen, the Bestablishing new institutions tablished by assembling faculti- prototype of the built-in kitchen. for the young Republic was fun- es earlier instituted in the capital. Ultimately, Frankfurt City Council damental to Atatürk’s Reforms, installed 10,000 Frankfurt Kitc- a series of political, legal, cultu- ational Socialism was a rising hens in new apartments desig- ral, social and economic changes. Nthreat throughout Europe. ned for working class occupants. -R XLI VISVKERM^EXMSR SJ ¿W- Academics – Jewish, or with liberal tanbul University began, and in or social democratic views – were n Frankfurt, Lihotzky met Wil- 1946, Ankara University, the first facing extreme difficulties related Ihelm Schütte, a fellow architect university in Anatolia, was es- to their identities and ideas. At the same time, Turkey was in des- perate need of scholars to teach at its newly established universities. s World War II approached, A¿WXERFYP LEH IEVRIH XLI VI- putation of a safe destination for exiled Europeans. In 1938, ac- cepting Bruno Taut’s invitation, Schütte-Lihotzky and her hus- FERH QSZIH XS ¿WXERFYP XS XIEGL Although Taut died soon after the couple’s arrival, it was here that the Schüttes met musicians Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith, as well as other foreign professors.* Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, building Frankfurt Kitchen chütte-Lihotzky worked for surveyor, Frankfurt (1926) (1926) Sthe Turkish Ministry of Educa- tion from 1938 to 1940, designing prototype grade schools for Ana- low Austrian and architect organi- aching at the Academy of Fine tolian villages and an extension zing Communist resistance efforts %VXWMR¿WXERFYPJSVKIHXLMWPIXXIV of the Girl’s Lycée in Ankara. Her against the Nazi regime. In 1939, and succeeded in sending it to his plan for a “Feast Tower,” to be built Schütte-Lihotzky joined the Aust- wife’s sister in Vienna with a cou- at the Karaköy entrance of Galata rian Communist Party (KPÖ) and rier from the German Embassy. “If Bridge in honor of the Republic’s in December 1940, together with this letter had not reached Berlin 15th anniversary, however, was Eichholzer, traveled to Vienna to in time, I would have been senten- never realized. As Atatürk was se- make contact with the Austrian ced to death and executed toget- verely ill at this time, anniversary Communist resistance movement. her with my comrades,” Schütte- celebrations were not as elaborate However, only 25 days after her ar- Lihotzky relates in her memoirs.** as they typically would have been. rival in Vienna, she was arrested by the Gestapo. While Eichhol- ** Erinnerungen aus dem Widerstand, Edition R ¿WXERFYP 7GLXXI0MLSX^O] zer was charged with high treason Promedia, 1998, pp. 124-138. Imet Herbert Eichholzer, a fel- and executed in 1943, Schütte-Li- hotzky was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in Aichach, Bava- ria. She was liberated from there by U.S. troops on April 29, 1945. rior to her sentencing, Schütte- PLihotzky’s friends in prison had advised her to take advantage of her relationship with the Tur- kish Ministry of Education, sugges- ting she obtain a letter requesting LIVVIXYVRXS¿WXERFYP %PXLSYKL at this time Turkey and Germany were not allies, it was in the latter’s best interest to remain on good terms.) Wilhelm Schütte, still te- * Some of the professors and artists working in Turkey by the 1930s: Licco Amar, Heinz Anstock, Fritz Arndt, Erich Auerbach, Rudolf Belling, Kurt Bittel, Helmuth Theodor Bossert, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Hugo Braun, Leo Brauner, Ludwig Friedrich proposal for the extension of Breusch, Harry Dember, Friedrich Dessauer, the Girl’s Lycée in Ankara (1938) Herbert Dieckmann, Ernst Diez, Josef Dob- retsberger, Wolfram Eberhard, Carl Ebert, Albert Eckstein, Ernst Arnold Egli, Kurt Erd- mann, Erwin Finlay-Freundlich, Erich Frank, Traugott Fuchs, Philipp Ginther, Wolfgang Gleissberg, Friedrich Grimm, Hans Gustav Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and Güterbock, Felix Haurowitz, Alfred Heilbronn, ;MPLIPQ7GLXXIMRXLIMV¿WXERFYP Karl Hellmann, Rosemarie Heyd-Burkart, apartment overlooking the Bosphorus Franz Hillinger, Paul Hindemith, Ernst E. (1938) Hirsch, Julius Hirsch, Paul Hoffmann, Cle- mens Holzmeister, Richard Honig, Joseph Igersheimer, Alfred Isaac, Alfred Kantorowicz, Gerhard Kessler, Curt Kosswig, Walther Kranz, Benno Landsberger, Leopold Levy, Wilhelm Gustav Liepmann, Werner Lipschitz, Hans Marchand, Alfred Marchionini, Eduard Melc- hior, Max Meyer, Fritz Neumark, Rudolf Nissen, Siegfried Oberndorfer, Gustav Oelsner, Wil- helm Peters, Hans Poelzig, Henry Prost, Paul Pulewka, Hans Reichenbach, Ernst Reuter, Umberto Ricci, Hellmut Ritter, Georg Roh- de, Hans Rosenberg, Wilhelm Röpke, Walter Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Ruben, Alexander Rüstow, Philipp Schwartz, Wilhelm Schütte (third from left) and Andreas Bertholan Schwarz, Max Sgalitzer, “Feast Tower” proposal for the Karaköy Leo Spitzer, Fritz Stern, Julius Stern, Karl 6SFIVX:SVLSIP^IV æVWXJVSQPIJX [MXL entrance of Galata Bridge in celebration Strupp, Marie Louis Süe, Bruno Taut, Adolf Turkish professors from the of the Republic’s 15th anniversary Treberer, Ernst von Aster, Arthur R. von Hip - Department of Architecture on a (Unrealized due to Atatürk’s pel, Richard von Mises, Robert Vorhoelzer, research trip to Edirne (1940) severe illness) Martin Wagner, Karl Weiner, Hans Winters- tein, Erich Zimmerman, Eduard Zuckmayer. Carl Ebert with his students at the State Conservatory in Ankara (1937) Carl Ebert was a German theater and ope- ra producer, administrator, director and actor who directed Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities in Darmstadt in 1927. Ebert was in- vited to teach in Ankara during the 1935- 36 academic year. Between 1935 and 1944, he acted as the director of the newly foun- ded State Conservatory in Ankara, which ultimately led to the foundation of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet. Ebert es - tablished opera and theater departments at the Conservatory, as well as a “practice theater” where opera and drama students could appear in public performances. ¿WXERFYP%GEHIQ]SJ*MRI%VXW painting studio (1927) Plan 1: School for 30 students Plan 2: School for 50-60 students Plan 3: School for 50-60 students with room for one teacher Plan 4: School for 100-120 stu- dents with room for one teacher Plan 5: School for 50-60 students with room for two teachers Modernity Unveiled oday’s 29-letter Turkish alpha- Tbet was established with the Law on the Adoption and Imple- mentation of the Turkish Alphabet on November 1, 1928, as a vital step in Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s cultu- ral reforms. Replacing the earlier Ottoman Turkish script, the new script was designed as an exten- ded version of the Latin alphabet. he alphabet reform, combined Twith the 1932 foundation of the Turkish Language Association and campaigns by the Ministry of Education including the opening of Public Education Centers ac- ross Turkey, succeeded in achie- ving a substantial increase in the country’s literacy rate, from aro- und 20% to over 90%. The reforms were further backed by the Law on Copyrights, issued in 1934, which encouraged and strengthened the private publishing sector. In 1939, the first Turkish Publications Congress was organized in Anka- ra with the objective of stimula- ting discussion around issues like copyright, printing, the literacy rate and scientific publications. n 1928, the most critical issue to improve the lack of access to Minister of Education Hasan Ali Yücel Iin Turkey was education of the education through a literacy mo- with a student from the Village Institutes masses. Under the leadership of bilization campaign. The program (1940) Atatürk, the government sought began in rural areas, where the rate of illiteracy was at its highest. dents constructed school buldings and farmed their own food. Their uring the mid-1930s, there education was comprised of both Dwere no schools or teachers practical studies and classical in most villages. By 1940, the Vil- math and science courses, with lage Institutes had begun to be daily routines including physical established. The institutes trai- education and reading periods. ned teachers from the villages, Students were also invited to at- then sent them home to form tend meetings in which they co- new village schools.