(b Vienna, 21 May 1918; d Vienna, 20 Aug, 1975). Austrian architect, teacher and writer. He studied at the Technische Hochschule, Vienna, gaining his doctorate in 1941, and in 1949 he began to practise as an architect in Vienna. His artistic development was shaped by his work as an assistant at the Akademie für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, where the tradition of Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte continued; the head of his master class, Professor Oswald Haerdtl, was a colleague of Hoffmann. Schwanzer first became known for his work on exhibition buildings and interiors, whose dynamic design was intended to encourage movement and participation by visitors in place of the aesthetic stance of the Viennese Secession. His Austrian pavilion at the Exposition Universelle et Internationale in Brussels (1958) became internationally famous; the steel-framed building was rebuilt in Vienna (1964) as the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts. A later exhibition building was the Austrian pavilion and kindergarten for Vienna at the World Expo (1967) in Montreal. Schwanzer received many commissions from influential business circles and developed a large architectural practice. In 1959 he became Professor at the Technische Hochschule and Principal of the Institut für Gebäudelehre und Entwerfen, Vienna, where he worked on the development of new architectural concepts using experimental materials and construction. His work increasingly diverged from the tradition of Mies van der Rohe, to which it was initially linked; using contrasting horizontal and vertical forms he produced tension in his designs, increasing the diagrammatic effect of his buildings. Perhaps his best-known work was carried out for the BMW factory in Munich, where he built a multi-storey car park (1970) and administration building (1972), which has a trifoliate plan with floors suspended from a cross girder at the top. The building became a landmark in Munich.

• Schwanzer, Karl
  • Austria, §V, 4: Interior decoration, after 1897
  • Museum, §II, 2: Architecture, 1850–1940