Ilse Kočí

Ilse Weschta’s stay and career at the TH after graduating were rather unusual. They can be seen as a consequence of the war and the shortage of well-trained male specialists. At the beginning of 1944, she became a university assistant to Max Theuer.  Like other assistants, she had joined the NSDAP. This may have favoured her position as an assistant. With the end of the war and the end of the Nazi regime, some of the management and professors at the TH Vienna were dismissed and replaced by politically innocent people. Max Theuer was appointed interim dean and Ilse Weschta had to take over some of his teaching assignments as he himself had fallen ill. It seemed logical for the young architect to continue her academic career. However, this assistant position ended in 1948 due to Max Theuer’s retirement and her marriage to Jan Kočí, another TH graduate, may also be related to this.

Even though the post-war period offered many commissions for architects and urban planners, living conditions were difficult. The couple therefore decided to move to Czechoslovakia, her husband’s homeland, in 1948. The couple arrived in Bratislava at the beginning of 1948, just before the February coup in Prague. Silvia, the couple’s only child, was born in 1949. Both had to re-establish themselves professionally, which she managed to do with a job at a construction office for two years, followed by three years at the Bratislava Monument Office, while her husband was given teaching assignments at the Technical University in Bratislava.  Ilse Kočí’s employment came to an end in 1955. Until 1957, she worked as a self-employed architect in the field of residential construction and interior design and took part in exhibitions. Together with her husband, she took part in competitions and re-adaptations, such as those of the cultural centre in Bucsány and the stadium in Šurany.

Life became increasingly difficult for the couple in a country that was under communist administration. Their desire to return to Austria proved complicated, as it was practically impossible to leave Czechoslovakia legally during the Cold War. They finally managed to leave the country separately via a stopover in Egypt. The Kočí family arrived back in Vienna in 1957. Ilse Kočí decided to work independently, successfully passed the civil engineering exam and applied for an architect’s licence on 19 May 1958. She named the interior design of the Perle restaurant and the Hotel Palace in Bratislava as her reference cases. Despite the fact that she was apparently unable to provide sufficient evidence of this work from her time in Czechoslovakia, she was granted the licence with the following comment: “The practice in the CSR, which was not documented for political reasons, is credible to the extent that it can at least be used as evidence of construction management activity. Apart from that, the practice is provided due to her work as an assistant in Vienna“.

Her projects in Vienna, which focussed heavily on historical urban planning and the preservation of listed buildings, included the design and renovation of the Maria am Gestade square and the renovation and restoration of Otto Wagner’s underground stations on Karlsplatz. Additionally, she constructed several residential buildings for the municipality of Vienna and a school in the 22nd district. One particular project was considered ground-breaking in terms of its dimensions and concep. It was a study from 1968 for the creation of a pedestrian zone that encompassed the Naglergasse – Graben – Kärntnerstraße area. The City of Vienna had commissioned five architectural firms to carry out a feasibility study, which was initially rejected by those responsible as unfeasible. It was not until a few years later that the idea of a pedestrian zone was realised.

Ilse and Jan Kočí often worked together on projects until the 1990s. Jan Kočí died in 2004, Ilse Kočí in 2010.