About Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
Margarete "Grete" Schütte-Lihotzky (née Lihotzky; 23 January 1897 – 18 January 2000) was an Austrian architect and a communist activist in the Austrian resistance to Nazism. She is mostly remembered today for designing what is known as the Frankfurt kitchen. == Early life and education == Margarete Lihotzky was born on 23 January 1897 into a bourgeois family in Margareten, since 1850 part of Vienna. Her grandfather Gustav Lihotzky was a mayor of Czernowitz, Ducal Bukovina, and her mother Julie Bode was relative of Wilhelm von Bode. Her father was a liberal-minded civil servant, Erwin Lihotzky, whose pacifism made him welcome the end of the Habsburg Empire and the founding of the republic in 1918. Lihotzky became the first female student at the Kunstgewerbeschule, today the University of Applied Arts Vienna), where renowned artists such as Josef Hoffmann, Anton Hanak, and Oskar Kokoschka taught. Lihotzky almost did not get in. Her mother persuaded a close friend to ask the famous artist Gustav Klimt for a letter of recommendation. In 1997, celebrating her 100th birthday and reminiscing about her decision to study architecture, she remarked that "in 1916 no one would have conceived of a woman being commissioned to build a house – not even myself." Lihotzky studied architecture under Oskar Strnad, winning prizes for her designs even before her graduation. Strnad was one of the pioneers of sozialer Wohnbau in Vienna, affordable yet comfortable social housing for the working classes.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.