(b Klagenfurt, 31 Oct 1913). German architect of Austrian birth. He studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna (1934–8). During World War II he served in the army and became a prisoner of war. After the war he concluded his studies at the Technische Hochschule of Graz where he was finally awarded his diploma in 1947. In the same year he began working for the firm of Hentrich & Heuser. When Hans Heuser (b 1904) died in 1953, Petschnigg entered into partnership with HELMUT HENTRICH. One of the firm’s most famous designs, the Phoenix-Rheinrohr A.G. administration building (1957–60) in Düsseldorf, dates from this period. The triple-slab skyscraper with its curtain wall of steel, aluminium and glass and its three-part ground-plan became the symbol of the newly strengthened German building industry and the strong influence of American architecture in post-war Germany, in particular the work of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Subsequent designs such as Unilever-Haus (1962) in Hamburg, with a triangular plan of three wings, are equally bold and modern. In 1969 the firm was enlarged into Hentrich–Petschnigg & Partners and became known as HPP. Their designs for the University of Bochum, a campus complex for 25,000 students (1963–77), are very much in the tradition of the functional architecture of the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the large projects by HPP were for commercial clients, for example the Standard Bank Centre (1971), Johannesburg. In 1977 Petschnigg was made honorary senator of the Technische Hochschule of Graz.

• Petschnigg, Hubert
  • Hentrich, Helmut