Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's Frankfurt Kitchen

"They thought that I would starve to death. Nobody could imagine hiring a woman to build a house in 1916 — not even myself."

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000) was born in Vienna and became the first female student of the so-called Kunstgewerbeschule, now known as the University of Applied Arts Vienna. As a student she worked on projects on affordable housing for the working class and decided to dedicate her career to reducing some burdens through efficient residential design. In an early project of hers, she designed flats for single, working women. 

When the social housing development programme "New Frankfurt" was launched in the German city of Frankfurt, Schütte-Lihotzky was invited to join - which she did creating her magnum opus, the first fitted kitchen, the "Frankfurt Kitchen" (aged 101, she said: "If I had known that everyone would keep talking about nothing else, I would never have built that damn kitchen!"). With this kitchen she aimed to make life easier for those (mainly women) using it. At the time, kitchens in working-class housing were part of the living room which often also served as a bedroom. The separated kitchen was small but efficient, the efficiency was drawn from kitchens in scientific laboratories and railway cars. The design was also based on interviews with housewives and time-motion studies of their work to reduce the number of steps needed to be taken between different tasks. About 10.000 of these kitchens were built in Frankfurt alone. Later, feminists linked Schütte-Lihotzky with the subjugation of women by the kitchen. Schütte-Lihotzky, however, wanted to reduce the hours and burden of women's unpaid labour at home: 

"I was convinced that the economic independence and self-realization of women would be a common good, and that therefore the further rationalization of household labor was imperative."

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky

Schütte-Lihotzky was an ardent antifascist who joined the resistance against the Nazis. She was imprisoned in 1941 and sentenced to death but was lucky and returned to Vienna after the liberation in 1945 (via).

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photographs of Schütte-Lihotzky in her home via and via and via

Vienna - City of Human Rights. Declaration.

"The City of Vienna pledges to act as a guardian and defender of human rights by striving to respect, protect, fulfil and be accountable for human rights in all of its areas of competence. Based on this approach, the City of Vienna actively supports its citizens in asserting and upholding their human rights by providing adequate framework conditions and using them as a basis for its actions. This approach is based on the principle that every person living in the city has the same human rights – regardless of their nationality or residency status." (via/more)

photograph of Thomas Bernhard in Vienna, 1970 via

Save the date

The Vienna University of Economics and Business is organising "THE WU Gender and Diversity Conference 2022 Diversity, Diversity Management and Intersectionality in a Global Context - Dynamics and Realignments" where I will be presenting my paper: 

Woman or old? On the intersection of age and gender and the gaze of youth in Western feminism. 

24- 25 March, conference programme: link

Abstract: The concept of intersectionality is intertwined with the critique of white feminism’s tendency to treat women as one homogeneous group turning a blind eye to the impact of other identity factors and the complexity of discrimination. Gender on its own is regarded as an insufficient explanation of the discrimination women experience. While questioning the monolithic understanding of the feminine has become more common in debates, discourses are rather about heteronormative, cisgender, white ideas. Age is not part of the public discussion, academia shows little interest. 

This paper examines the intersection of age and gender. Both are primitive categories and rapidly evaluated, but they differ in weight. An old woman is more old than woman, it seems, which has implications. It makes her invisible as a woman – for the general public and for Western feminists – and less protected. When older women die from homicide, for instance, the cases are not treated as femicide but gender neutral elder abuse which is not followed by a strong emotional response, calls for action or hashtags. Western feminism mainly focuses on aspects like childcare, abortion, gender pay gap, objectification. Eldercare in the family is not identified as a feminist issue even though it disproportionally affects women, neither are lower pensions although women constitute a massive part of the elderly poor, just to mention two examples. While there is awareness concerning the male gaze, the gaze of youth is ignored. Finally, cultural aspects are discussed to better understand how deeply ingrained ageism is. 

Using an intersectional lens is a chance to make Western feminism more inclusive. A concept of the whole life is needed to make sure all women benefit from feminist advances, no matter what age. (Moazedi, 2022)

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- Moazedi, M. L. (2022). Woman or old? On the intersection of age and gender and the gaze of youth in Western feminism. THE WU Gender and Diversity Conference 2022 Diversity, Diversity Management and Intersectionality in a Global Context - Dynamics and Realignments, 24th to 25th of March, 2022.
- photograph by Garry Winogrand via

Selecting Headlines, Constructing Reality

More than 200.000 crimes are reported to the police in Vienna every year, less than 2.000 of them are communicated to media. According to an analysis of 3.726 incidents passed to media by the police in 2013 and 2014, there seems to be a pattern in the selection of what is to be reported and what not. While robbery is number one on the list, only every 43rd rape is communicated to media which creates a distortion of reality. The nonrendering of assistance to persons in danger and racist violence are non-existent in media although being reported to the police. At the same time, almost every single robbery or assault in connection with jewellers, banks or taxi drivers is passed to journalists. Drug-related crime, number six on the list, is communicated to journalists every second day. The analysis also shows a correlation between the amount of incidents reported to the press and the districts in which they happen.
Selections do have an impact on our conception of reality and they are also shaped by what the police reports. After all, between 80 and 90% of all the crimes we read about were originally reported by the police (via).



photograph by William Helburn (1960) via

Welcome.TU.code

The Vienna University of Technology was founded in 1815, has more than 26.000 students, and is ranked as one of the best universities (via). Both its real excellence and its mission "technology for the people" (via) are put into practice by the Faculty of Informatics' project Welcome.TU.code. The initiative was launched by researchers, teachers and students to offer computer workshops for young asylum seekers, particularly unaccompanied minor refugees (via).



The workshops keep the teenagers busy who at the same time can acquire computer skills which again are required for a great many jobs. In addition, computer basics are necessary as the internet is often the only medium to stay in touch with the family left behind (via). According to Prof. Hannes Werthner, Head of the Electronic Commerce Group, Institute for Software Technology and Interactive Systems, and Kathrin Conrad, student at the Faculty of Informatics, this project aims to produce positive signals, to welcome these young people in Austria and to set an example by showing that different approaches to integration are possible. This summer, more than 50 teenagers mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia take part in five workshops (via). The workshops are led by psychologically trained students who teach in more than ten languages (via).

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photograph via
For more photographs of women in mini skirts at huge computers see

"Building Bridges": Diversity, Vienna, Traffic Lights & the Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest, one of the longest running annual TV song competitions, was created by Marcel Bezençon (1907-1981) in 1956, inspired by the Italian "Sanremo Music Festival" firstly held in 1951. Vienna was the host city twice, in 1967 and in 2015 (via and via).



The first time Austria hosted the Eurovision Song Contest was in 1967, one year after Udo Jürgens (1934-2014) won with "Merci, Chérie". 1967 was the year Angolan singer Eduardo Nascimento participated on behalf of Portugal - the first male black performer in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1966, the Dutch jazz singer of Surinamese origin Milly Scott, the first female black singer at Eurovision, performed for the Netherlands (via and via) and by doing so "stepped out of the confines of performing the Euro-whiteness that Eurovision had so far managed to establish". Scott sang "Fernando en Filippo" and "went Latin". Shaking her hips and inserting an improvised scat ad lib was standard practice for a jazz singer but revolutionary in mainstream pop music of the 1960s (Mutsaers, 2007).
By the way, allegedly "cool": In 1967, 50% of each country's jurors had to be younger than 30 to boost the contest's modern image (via).



This year, Vienna hosted the Eurovision Song Contest again. Conchita, the cross-dressing long-haired full-bearded lady, had won the contest the year before which was seen as a clear message as she is regarded as "a symbol for tolerance and artistic freedom". And when Sweden won the 2015 contest with Mans Zelmerov singing "Heroes", Zelmerov continued the message by saying: "We are all heroes no matter who we love, who we are or what we believe in." (via) Conchita about her 2014 entry:

"For me the most special and honoring thing is that Austria shows tolerance and acceptance and I’m so happy to be this statement. I’m allowed to be the voice of their beliefs during this time and this really makes me very proud. We, and not at least myself, want to stand for a society without hate and discrimination. And if I’m honest, I think everyone of the contestants should stand for the same, cause we are joining a very opend minded project, so they should be open minded too."
Conchita Wurst

As part of the preparations for the Eurovision Song Contest and other events linked to tolerance (such as the charity event Life Ball), Vienna installed pedestrian crossing lights with straight, gay and lesbian couples at 49 crossings (via). The campaign aims to communicate Vienna's open-mindedness and also improve traffic safety as the new symbols will surely draw more attention to the traffic (via). At first, the new traffic lights were supposed to be installed for a few weeks only. Due to their popularity in the city, the positive feedback from abroad and successful petitions, Vienna decided to keep the new traffic lights (via) ... see



The Eurovision Song Contest is criticised for its mainstream character, for the political and geographical voting tendencies of certain countries forming "cliques" which have a high impact on the results (via). Nevertheless, there are certain positive aspects: After the so-called "ethnic turn", participants started to display more openly cultural diversity (Björnberg, 2007). Participating countries also choose to send persons to represent the country that are members of minority groups. In 1998, for instance, Israel won with transgender Sharon Cohen (via), Finland chose a band with a difference for the 2015 participation: middle-aged punk rockers on the autism spectrum or with Down's syndrome (via), and Poland chose a singer who is partially paralysed (via). The hosting city of Vienna, by the way, ensured "maximum accessibility", the venue "Stadthalle" and the Eurovision Village were accessible and barrier-free (via).



The slogan organiser chose for 2015 was "Building Bridges", "a great slogan that captures what the Eurovision Song Contest has been all about since 1956 - bringing people together" (via):

"We understand this slogan as a logical extension of the idea Conchita Wurst formulated at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest and also lived: the importance of openness, tolerance across all borders for a joint interaction. With the song contest in Vienna, we want music to build bridges across borders, cultures and languages​​. In light of the unifying power of this great common European event, we invite all to build bridges and to join hands."
Alexander Wrabetz, Director General of ORF (Austrian Broadcasting)

Eurovision is over. But an academic reflection is to take place in the near future. On 19th and 20th of June, the international conference "Musical Diversity and Cultural Identities in the History of the Eurovision Song Contest" will be held by the Karl Franzens University in the Austrian city of Graz. On two days, the Eurovision's role in promoting diversity, cultural identity, gender, and social changes will be recapitulated. Here the programme: download



Eurovision Link Pack:
::: France Gall (1965, France) - Poupée de cire, poupée de son watch/listen
::: Eduardo Nascimento (1967, Portugal) - O vento mudou watch/listen
::: Vicky (1967, Luxembourg) - L'amour est bleu watch/listen
::: Sandie Shaw (1967, UK) - Puppet On A String watch/listen
::: Iva Zanicchi (1969, Italy) - Due grosse lacrime bianche watch/listen
::: Lulu (1969, UK) - Boom Bang A Bang watch/listen
::: Mary Hopkin (1970, UK) - Knock, Knock watch/listen
::: Gigliola Cinquetti (1974, Italy) - Sì watch/listen
::: Brotherhood of Man (1976, UK) - Save Your Kisses for Me watch/listen
::: Mia Martini (1977, Italy) - Libera watch/listen



- Björnberg, A. (2007) Return to ethnicity: The cultural significance of musical change in the Eurovision Song Contest. In: Raykoff, I. & Deam, R. (eds.) A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest. 13- 24. Hampshire & Burlington: Ashgate Publishing
- Mutsaers, L. (2007) Fernando, Filippo, and Milly: Bringing blackness to the Eurovision stage. In: Raykoff, I. & Deam, R. (eds.) A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest. 61-70. Hampshire & Burlington: Ashgate Publishing
- photographs of Eurovision Song Contest 1967 (1-3, 6-7) via and (4) via and (5) via

Vienna's hotel with an additional value

"This project is a symbol of tolerance and everything I love about Vienna."
Michael Häupl, Mayor of Vienna

"Who lives here legally should also be able to work here legally. Refugees living here have a stable job and a future."
Michael Landau, President of Caritas Austria

Tomorrow, a new hotel will open in Vienna. And it is not just another hotel but a very special one. Since tourists and refugees often have some things in common, such as language, culture, mobility and open-mindedness, in this hotel, tourists will be welcomed by special employees: tourism experts and refugees (Czaja, 2015) from 16 countries.
The hotel is a five-year-project run by Caritas, a Catholic non-government, not-for-profit organisation that was founded by Lorenz Worthmann in 1897 which is today operating in more than 200 countries (via). Hotel magdas is financed by crowdfunding and the Caritas Social Business Unit. The social business hotel was rebuilt by AllesWirdGut architects. In five years, the building will be demolished and a new one will be constructed for senior citizens in need of care (Czaja, 2015). Hotel magdas is located close to the "Wiener Prater", the oldest amusement park in the world (via).



- Czaja, W. (2015) Wiener Prater: Flüchtlinge und Touristen unter einem Dach. Der Standard, 12. Februar 2015, S. 10
- photograph of Vienna in the 1960s via