Edith Matzalik

During his stays in Moscow, Otto Neurath often visited Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, whom he knew well from their joint work for the Vienna Settlement Movement. Schütte-Lihotzky had lived and worked in Moscow since 1930 as a member of Ernst May’s team of experts. It is very likely that the two architects, Margarete and Edith, knew and met each other in Moscow. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky mentioned in a letter to her sister Adele in Vienna (November 1931): “Neurath has signed a contract for his museum and will probably come more often now, as will Bauermeister and Matzalik, so that there will be constant direct traffic Vienna – Moscow through the museum.“

In 1934, the GWM association in Vienna was dissolved by the corporative state regime, and the co-operation with Izostat also came to an end. Edith Matzalik stayed longer in Moscow and worked for Izostat. In her curriculum vitae, she stated that she was “in the same position in Moscow“  from 1934 to 1936 and was active as a self-employed architect from 1936 to 1940. Edith Matzalik appears to have lived and worked in Vienna again from 1936.

In 1940, she took on a contract for work at the Reichsbauamt Innerer Stadt II (the Reich Construction Office II), from August 1942 to 1943 she was active in the Eastern Planning Department and from November 1943 until the end of the war in the Reichsbauamt Innerer Stadt II for the preparation of planning documents for Lambach Abbey.

She used her graphic skills in drawing for special effects and tricks at Wien-Film, e.g. for the documentary films Augen 1941 and Dein besseres Ich 1942.

After the end of the war, Edith Matzalik was employed by the Vienna City Planning Department from 1946. She was involved in many urban planning tasks and was responsible for exhibition visualisations. Edith Matzalik was on the jury of the organisers of the exhibition Die Frau und ihre Wohnung in December 1950 and was responsible for the exhibition panels.  The exhibition focussed on the general improvement of living culture, with women being seen as the main point of contact for housing and household goods.

In 1951, she resigned from the City of Vienna. In order to become self-employed, she applied to the Chamber of Engineers to become authorised as an architect with proof of more than 10 years of practice. The chamber refused. However, the Federal Ministry of Trade and Reconstruction approved the certificate. She was granted authorisation to take the civil engineering examination, which she passed in December 1952. Finally, in 1954, she obtained the licence to practice as an architect and opened her office in Vienna 15. As an independent architect, she was often commissioned to work in consortiums with several architects, including on the planning of the Marianne and Oscar-Pollak-Hof municipal housing complex in the 21st district. She also worked on studies commissioned by the city and published on various urban planning issues.

In 1966, she moved her office to the ground floor of the building in Vienna’s 10th district, where she also lived.

She planned a kindergarten in the 22nd district, which was under construction in 1968 when she died very suddenly. The final planning was almost complete. After the architect’s death, the kindergarten was completed by the substitute architect Friedrich Pangratz.