Ernst Plischke

Ernst Plischke was an Austrian-New Zealand modernist architect, town planner and furniture designer whose work is well known throughout Europe and New Zealand.

Born in Austria in 1903 to a creative family, his father was an architect and his mother came from a family of cabinet-makers. From an early age he spent time in workshops and studios, before studying interior- and furniture-design at Vienna's College of Arts and Crafts, and subsequently being accepted into a Master School run by leading architect Peter Behrens. After graduating in 1926 he worked in Behrens's private office. In 1929 he travelled to New York to work, but this pursuit was thwarted by the Great Depression, and he returned to Austria.

His first major project, the Austrian government’s Labour Exchange building in Liesing, was completed in 1931 and set him apart as one of Austria's leading architects. He became a member of the Austrian Werkbund movement, and contributed a building to the experimental housing research project, the Werkbundsiedlung. In 1935, he married Anna Lang-Schwizer and received the Austrian State Prize for architecture.

In March 1938, Germany occupied Austria. German law required that all architects had to become part of a centralised Reich Chamber of Culture. Because his wife was Jewish, he was not accepted into the Chamber of Arts. This, along with the banning of modernist buildings by the German occupation, led Plischke to move to New Zealand in 1939.

He arrived in Wellington on 9 May 1939 with Anna and her son Heinrich Lang, officially classified as enemy aliens. However, authorities deemed them reliable enough that they would only be interned if an invasion of New Zealand occurred. Plischke and his family were eventually naturalised as New Zealand citizens in 1946.

His work was known to New Zealand architectural circles, and he began working for the Ministry of Housing on projects such as the Dixon Street Flats. In 1942, he designed the Abel Tasman Monument for a site in Golden Bay, and worked for the Department of Town Planning from 1943-1947 producing work in areas including: Naenae, Trentham, Tāmaki and Mangakino. He also completed private work during this time.

Despite his international recognition he struggled to gain acceptance within New Zealand’s architectural community, and notably refused to undertake additional examinations to join the New Zealand Institute of Architects, believing his qualifications and experience should have sufficed.

In 1948 he formed the 'Plishke & Firth' partnership with Cedric Firth. Massey House (1951–1957) located on Lambton Quay was their biggest project, undertaken alongside over 40 private house commissions including the Giles house (Raumati, c.1949) and the Sutch house (Brooklyn, 1953). The partnership ended in 1959 and Plischke joined Robert Fantl in another partnership, but work dried up in the early 1960s.

In 1963 he returned to Austria, taking up the role of Professor of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Teaching and writing took up much of his time during the last decades of his life. Austria also rewarded him with a number of awards; Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and the Arts, First Class (1973) and the Golden Medal of Honor for Science and the Arts (1988). He was made Honorary Member of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1983), Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects (1987) and Honorary Member of the Austrian Society for Architecture (1988).

Plischke died aged 89, in Vienna on 23 May 1992.

Adapted from the Wikipedia page on Ernst Plischke.

See also:

• Ernst Plischke - Wikipedia
• Linda Tyler. 'Plischke, Ernst Anton', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
• Ben Schrader, 'Public, commercial and church architecture - Modernism, 1930 to 1970', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand