Elisabeth Nießen

Only two of these first female students of building construction went on to become architects, Margarete Lihotzky and Elisabeth Niessen. No further details are known about the careers of Hilda Friedenberg and Klothilde Drennig von Pietra-Rossa. Juliana Rysavy and Maria Trinkl became known as textile artists of the Wiener Werkstätten. Ernestine (Erna) Kopriva also worked for the Wiener Werkstätten after graduating in 1919. She became an assistant in the Hoffmann class in 1928. After 1945-1960, she was in charge of the class and the workshop for fabric printing and wallpaper.

The years of education were marked by the First World War. In 1916, the Kunstgewerbeschule was commissioned by the Imperial-Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (nowadays known as the Museum of Applied Arts) to create designs for ‘simple sample furniture for areas affected by the war’. This resulted in the portfolio Einfacher Hausrat, in which Professor Oskar Strnad and numerous students from the architecture classes contributed furniture designs. These included drawings for two cabinets by Elisabeth Niessen, a cabinet design and a cabinet with glass door.

Elisabeth Niessen was one of the very first women in Vienna to complete a degree in architecture in 1917 in Heinrich Tessenow’s class. Her education can be traced through her participation in the building construction class and the catalogue entries of the teacher on ‘Art der Studien’. Elisabeth is listed in the 1916/17 catalogue under ‘furniture and house construction designs and associated working drawings’. In her leaving certificate from June 1917, Tessenow wrote:

‘Miss Elisabeth Nießen drew up the design and precise execution plans for middle-class and finer furniture, entire room furnishings and residential buildings. She is particularly gifted for architectural work and can handle small and medium-sized architectural tasks reliably and maturely.’

In August of the same year, she changed the job title of her registration in Vienna to architect and started working for the building authority of the City of Vienna. In September 1917, she joined the Plan- und Schriftenkammer Wien (Vienna Chamber of Plans and Drawings).

“After all, it was a small sensation when she took up her post. Mayor Dr Weiskirchner personally greeted the first female architect of the City Planning Office, …” was written in the Neues Wiener Journal on 31 May 1918 in the article titled Vienna’s first female architect. She received a great deal of attention as the “only woman working in a technical position at the city planning office”. Her field of work was described as planning for the Aspern war hostels and the war housing on the Schmelz. The architect was said to have given great importance to the planning of the flats along with their furnishings.

Elisabeth Niessen’s actual involvement in the planning of these housing estates cannot be traced today. No documents from this period can be found in the archives of the City of Vienna’s building authority. Niessen’s involvement in the later Red Vienna housing programme of cannot be traced either. 

She was active as a member of the association Wiener Frauenkunst (Viennese Women’s Art Association). There is documentation of her interior designs for a music room and a room for handicrafts at the exhibition Das Bild im Raum in 1929.

In the summer of 1930, she wrote a letter to Heinrich Tessenow in Berlin requesting his support and asking whether there were any job opportunities for female architects. She summarised her experiences in Vienna: “It may take fifty years to combat all the prejudices and to prove that a woman has a say and should be allowed to work in building construction.“

According to the civil register, she left Vienna in August 1931 to join her brother Ernst Niessen in Hanover. After that, her trail is lost.