Zdenko Strižić

• Name — Zdenko Strižić • Born — 19 May 1902 • Birthplace — Bjelovar, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary • Died — 1 November 1990 • Place of death — Hanover, Germany • Known for — Architect, urban planner, teacher of architecture

Strižić was the son of Dr. Miroslav and Irena pl. Strižić od Visnjevca and brother of Božidar, Jaroslav, Marcel and Ivan. He studied in Dresden (1921–3). In 1924, he went to Paris to study drawing and painting, creating views of the city and portraits of men and women. Tiring of the transient bohemian life of artistic Paris, in 1925 Strižić went to Berlin, where he enrolled at the Academy. His teacher was the prominent German architect Hans Poelzig. Also during 1925, Strižić went on a short study tour of Venice, drawing vedutas with characteristic Venetian motifs, some of which he was to translate into his architectural design. As a student he met and married a German-born textile designer Henrietta Liedke, who was then studying sculpture, painting and craft in Berlin and who later contributed to Zdenko's practice. Their photographer son Marko was born in 1928.

After finishing his studies, Strižić continued working for Poelzig's "Meisteratelier" as an assistant. Poelzig entrusted him with work on the Spandau housing estate near Berlin in 1927. Given the influx of population into major cities in Germany after World War I, in the mid-1920s, German architects increasingly turned to a new formal repertoire of social housing, characterized by economisation and efficiency of construction techniques and new layout plans for apartments, settlements and cities. For this purpose, in 1927, architect Mies van der Rohe, then head of the German Werkbund, brought together a team of eminent architects, including Poelzig and his studio. The assembled architects were tasked with jointly designing the Weisendorf neighborhood near Stuttgart, a prototype of future housing estates, in addition to a large exhibition of different types of houses. Some of the Weisendorf experiences, particularly the replacement of artisanal methods of construction with new, industrial methods and the design of ambiences according to the requirements of a new way of life, influenced Strižić's work, so that he also began interior decoration of apartments, designing, with his wife's textiles, ensemble furniture integral to the design, a practice in the spirit of the fundamental principles of CIAM (Congres Internationaux d 'Architecture Moderne). Military service in Maribor briefly interrupted his collaboration with the Poelzig studio before, in 1928, he undertook, together with his mentor, a succession of projects for apartment houses (1929) on the Bülowplatz (now Luxemburgplatz), Berlin with a complex of seven apartment buildings with two hundred apartments and associated furniture; in collaboration with Josip Pičman, he participated in the Bacvice baths project and oversight of Firulo in Split; the famous Babylon theatre/cinema (1929), Berlin; and a casino (1930) for I. G. Farbenindustrie, Frankfurt am Main in collaboration with architect Hans Holzbauer.

In 1955, Strižić escaped illegally from what was then Yugoslavia. A party of Australian architects had travelled through Yugoslavia, and one of them, David Saunders, a senior lecturer in architecture at the University of Melbourne who had stayed with Strizic's parents in 1952 carried a letter from Strižić's son, the photographer Mark Strizic who had been in Melbourne since 1950. The group sent an invitation to him to join the Melbourne faculty of architecture. He arranged to conduct students on a tour of Italy and left the party in charge of a colleague to join his wife in Germany. But despite being forced to leave, his work was uninterrupted. After emigrating, Strižić collaborated in Berlin with Peter Poelzig, son of Hans Poelzig for a time, and at the beginning of 1956 he went to Australia.

2004: Zdenko Strižić: Lights and Shadows, Zagreb City Museum, Zagreb, Croatia

• Strižić, Zdenko (1947). 'Regulaciona osnova Zadra.' Arhitektura, 1(1-2), 9-12. * • Strizic, Zdenko (January 1, 1953). Zadatci prostora: Odlomak iz knjige u pripremi: "Arhitektonsko projektovanje, 2. dio - Problemi stanovanja". Arhitekt, 6-11. ('Tasks of Space: An excerpt from a book in preparation: "Architectural Design, Part 2 - Housing Problems."' The Architect, 6-11.) • Strizic, Zdenko. (1953). Der jugoslawische Nationalpark: die Seen von Plitvice und die touristischen Bauten. W. Jegher & A. Ostertag. • Strizic, Zdenko (1954) 'Der Architekt und das architektonische Erbe in Jugoslawien,' in Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Vol.: 72 (1954) Issue 15, 1954 • Strizic, Zdenko (1955). Svijetla i sjene. Jedna monografija Zagreba. [Photographs, with text in Serbocroatian, French, English and German. With a map.]. 222 pages. Zagreb * • Strizic, Zdenko (1965). Architekt und Fotografie. (Place of publication unknown). • Strizic, Z., & Braunschweig (Germany). (1966). Einfamilienhäuser. Braunschweig: Technische Hochschule. * • Strižíc, Z., Koschel, R., & Technische Hochschule Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig. (1967). Flugempfangsgebäude: Ein Forschungsbericht. Braunschweig: Technische Hochschule. • Strizic, Z. (1978). Elemente und Ordnungsprinzipien der islamischen Stadtstruktur als konstiuierende Merkmale einer humanen Umwelt: Ein Forschungsbericht. Braunschweig. *

• Premerl, T. (1989.), Hrvatska moderna arhitektura između dva rata. Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, Zagreb (Premerl, T. (1989), Croatian Modern Architecture Between the Two Wars. Matica hrvatska Publishing House, Zagreb) • Gjuro, S., Zdunić, D., Strižić, Z., Dabac, T., Kirin, V., & Petlevski, O. (1990). Stari Zagreb. Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske. • Radović Mahečić, D. (1993). Socijalno stanovanje međuratnog Zagreba. Radovi Instituta za povijest umjetnosti, 2(17), 141–155.('Social housing in interwar Zagreb'. Papers of the Institute of Art History) • Laslo, A. (1995). 'Arhitektura modernog građanskog Zagreba.' Život umjetnosti, 56(57), 58–71. (Laslo, A. (1995). 'Architecture of Modern Civic Zagreb.' Art Life, 56 (57), 58–71.) • Galović, K. (1997). Architect Zdenko Strižić—Project for the theatre in Harkov (1930). Peristil: zbornik radova za povijest umjetnosti, 40(1), 137–147. • Lozić, V., Kuzmić, Z., & Strižić, Z. (January 1, 2004). Struktura, obris i sjena: Iz zbirke hrvatska fotografije Fotokluba Zagreb: Zdenko Stržić. Vijenac. ('Structure, outline and shadow: From the collection of Croatian Photography by the Zagreb Photo Club') • Uchytil, Andrej (2008) Smjernice za studiranje hrvatske arhitekture 20. stoljeća: Arhitekti, II. dopunjeno izdanje. (Guidelines for Studying Croatian Architecture of 20th Century: Architects) Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Arhitektonski fakultet, Zagreb *