Dr. Ulrike Matzer

Herzog & de Meuron, Extension of Head Office, South and East Wing St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2000-02 (c) Margherita Spiluttini Photo Archive, Architekturzentrum Wien

Margherita Spiluttini. Beyond the Estate.
Handling Artistic Estates – Challenges and Opportunities with Processing, Archiving, and Interpreting Artistic Legacies

Panel discussion and book presentation in conjunction with Aglaia Konrad’s exhibition Autofictions in Stone at the Vienna Secession, May 3rd, 2025, 7 p.m.

A conversation in memory of Margherita Spiluttini: Colleagues and experts of the arts, art theory and archival science will discuss her photographic work and the handling of artistic estates.

Panelists: Aglaia Konrad, Monika Faber, Georg Oberlechner, and Iris Ranzinger
Moderated by Ulrike Matzer (Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky Centre) 

Steinhof – "Landes-Irrenanstalt", aerial photograph (postcard), ca. 1919 (c) Wien Museum

Otto Wagner Areal. Cultural heritage preservation project (critical inventory)

On behalf of the WSE Wiener Standortentwicklung GmbH. Together with Michael Rainer (project management) and Günther Buchinger, 2024/25.

Opened in 1907 as the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home for the Mentally and Nervously Ill Am Steinhof", the facility was not only the largest in Europe. It was also highly progressive in terms of its treatment concept. Otto Wagner’s modern church was already received as a masterpiece back then.

During the Second World War, however, Am Steinhof developed into a center for "extermination psychiatry". The special feature of today’s Otto Wagner Areal at Steinhof is that the listed complex has been preserved largely intact and still fulfills medical care tasks. Then as now, the dimension and ensemble of architecture and nature are impressive. The complex in the functionalist pavilion style has recently come back into focus from a new perspective.

Photo: Stefan Oláh, 2022

Architecture for Medicine. A Cultural History of the General Hospital and the Medical University of Vienna

Research and publication project (with Stefan Oláh), on behalf of the rectorship of the Medical University of Vienna, 2019–23

Stefan Oláh in conversation with Ulrike Matzer (as part of Foto Wien), June 6, 2023, 5 p.m., Rauminhalt Harald Bichler, Vienna.

Villa Rezek, Vienna (view from Wilbrandtgasse), 1935, photo: Franz Mayer, published in: The Studio, vol. 11, 1936, p. 43.

Hans Glas – Protagonist der Zweiten Wiener Moderne. Geschichte und Gegenwart der Villa Rezek

Research and publication project, 2019–23.
Co-author of the Conservation Management Plan.

Guided tour through the restored Rezek house on June 24 and 25, 2023.

Zur Affinität von tableaux vivants, Theater und Fotografie

Lecture as part of the interdisciplinary workshop Pictorial techne and Co-operative Processes in Relation to Early Photography (as part of the FWF project Co-operative Art Techniques, University of Graz, sub-project of the DFG-research group Dimensions of techne in the Fine Arts – Manifestations / Systems / Narratives, April 20-22, 2023.

Rediscovering Ella Briggs – The Challenge of Writing Inclusive Architectural Histories for Women Who Broke the Mold

Participation in the international workshop organized by Elana Shapira, Despina Stratigakos and Monika Platzer, 6 june 2022, Az W, Vienna

Recent public discussions on the role of women architects in shaping Red Vienna has focused scholarly attention on Ella Briggs (1880–1977). Despite new research on Briggs' modernist architecture, many questions remain about her biography. International scholars from different disciplines addressed Briggs' career as designer, architect, and critic.

The findings will be published in the book Finding Ella Briggs: The Life and Work of an Unconventional Architect (Princeton University Press, 2025).

Adele Perlmutter, Les Jaloux, photograph after a tableau at Palais Auersperg, 1867. Michael Huey + Christian Witt-Dörring Photo archive, Vienna.

Spezialistinnen ihres Fachs. Zu Unrecht vergessene Fotografinnen

12 March, 2022, Vienna

Lecture as part of the symposium "FOTOTECHNIK^a", Foto Wien

Women were active in the field of photography from early on—a fact that is rarely mentioned in overviews of photographic history. The potential of a gender-analytical approach can be demonstrated by looking at two Viennese photographers who achieved a unique position in the photographic industry through their specialization: Adele Perlmutter became Vienna’s first Court Photographer in 1868 with her photographs of tableaux vivants, while Marianne Strobl was the first to undertake industrial documentation on a large scale around 1900.

Karl Schwanzer, Austrian Pavilion Montréal World Expo 1967, Photo Meyer (c) Wien Museum

Scientific examination of the photo archive of Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer 2019–20

For the publication Leidenschaftlich modern. Karl Schwanzer und seine Architektur. Eine Anthologie in Fotografien, 1947–75

On behalf of Martin and Caroline Schwanzer (the photographic collection is now part of the Karl Schwanzer Archive at Wien Museum)

Marianne Strobl / Theodor Jelinek, Sewage tunnel construction, Vienna (on behalf of Pittel + Brausewetter), 1896/98 (c) Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna

Fellow at Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna, 2015–17

Research Fellowship in the course of the dissertation project. Organisation of the exhibition Marianne Strobl, "Industrie-Photograph" 1894–1914 and editing of the correspondent publication (2017).

Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta, "Grüne Eidechse", 1896, photogravure (c) Albertina, permanent loan from Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr und Versuchsanstalt, Vienna

Research assistant as part of the project of the FWF Austrian Science Fund "Josef Maria Eder (1855–1944). A photohistorical monograph", Albertina photo collection, Vienna, 2009–12

Project management: Dr. Maren Gröning

Co-organization of the international workshop "Photography as a Schooling Issue" (with Dr. Maren Gröning) and co-curator of the exhibition "Josef Maria Eder und die Schuldisziplin" (with Dr. Maren Gröning and Dr. Monika Faber), Photoinstitut Bonartes, Vienna, 2012.
Lecture as part of the workshop: "'Le modèle tout complet' – Vienna’s Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt as a Study Center for Visual Communication", published in: Frame and Focus. Photography as a Schooling Issue. Contributions to a History of Photography in Austria, vol. 11, Salzburg: Fotohof edition 2015, pp. 28–56.

"Des images vidées ? Les livres de l' 'Archiv Peter Piller'"

Lecture as part of the colloquium "Entre documentation et fiction – la photographie dans le livre d’artiste", Université Catholique Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2009, published in: Image [&] Narrative, vol. 11, no. 4, 2010, "Photography and the Book", edited by Alexander Streitberger

Marianne (My) Ullmann, "Bescheiden", 1925 (c) Art Collection and Archive, University of Applied Arts, Vienna

Research assistant as part of the project of the FWF Austrian Science Fund "Wiener Kinetismus (Vienna Kinetism) 1920–25", Collections of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2005–06.

Project management: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Patrick Werkner