| Born: | 03-09-1913 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Adolf Kurt PLACZEK, born on March 9th, 1913 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Oswald Placzek (merchant, authorized signatory of Ignaz Klinger, 1863-1918) who died at an early age, and Pauline Placzek, née Selinko, lived in Vienna's 9th district, Wasagasse 2. He had attended the Bundesgymnasium Wien 9 ("Wasagymnasium") from 1923 and passed the graduation (Matura) there in 1931 and then studied medicine at the University of Vienna until 1934 - his stepfather was the well-known radiologist Fritz Eisler (1883-1936) - but switched to the Philosophical School in 1934 and studied art history. He was last enrolled in the spring terem of 1938 in the 4th and last year of his studies. He attended courses with Julius Schlosser, Hans Tietze, his uncle Max Eisler and Fritz Novotny. He worked in Venice, Italy, on his dissertation on Italian sculptures, but he was unable to complete the work in 1938.
After the Anschluss in March 1938, he was forced to abandon his almost completed studies for racist reasons - after his application to continue studying for at least three more months under the 2%-numerus clausus for Jewish students was also rejected. He had to leave the University of Vienna immediately.
He had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate to Great Britain in time in May 1939, where he lived in London, and on May 30th, 1940 continued from Liverpool, England on the SS Antonia to Montreal, Canada to enter the USA from there. He arrived in the U.S. at Rouses Point, NY on June 12th, 1940 and moved to New York City, NY. There he studied library science at Columbia University Library School in New York beginning in 1941 and received his doctorate in 1942, then served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army for three years beginning in February 1943. He received U.S. citizenship in July 1943.
After disarmament in 1946, he worked from 1948 as Assistant Librarian at the Avery Architectural and Fin Arts Library at Columbia University, the largest and most prestigious American art and architecture library, which he further developed and expanded as "Avery Librarian" (Director) from 1960. In addition, he was Adjunct Professor of Architecture from 1971 and President of the Society of Architectural Historian from 1978. In 1993, he recalled:
"In this capacity I was able to return to my real love, the history of architecture, in which I had received considerable training in Vienna. From my original (and still continuing) main interest, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, I began to shift to American architecture and especially modern architecture. In modern architecture I was able to make some contributions, notably organizing the three major Columbia University Modern Architecture Symposia ("M.A.S.11, 1963, 1965, 1967)."
In 1980 he retired as emeritus Avery Librarian and Emeritus Professor at Colombia University, but remained highly active and productive, publishing several major works. As Editor-in-chief he was responsible for the comprehensive and influential 4-volume The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects, published in 1981. As editor of the Dacapo Series on Architecture and Decorative Art, he edited numerous facsimiles of classics of architectural literature. From 1982-1991, he worked as Editor-in-Chief on The
Buildings of the United States, a 55-volume series on the heritage of American architecture, an inventory, as it were, of all American architecture and also completed the first 4 volumes.
Since 1984 he had also been active in historic preservation as a Commissioner on the Landmarks Preservation Commission of the City of New York, and as a Trustee of the Preservation League of New York State.
In February 1948, he had married Jan Struther (actually Joyce Maxtone-Graham, née Anstruther (1901-1953), who had divorced her first husband, Scotsman Anthony James Oliphant, 16th Laird of Coltoquhey Maxtone Graham (1900-1971), the year before) in Manhattan, NY. However, she died just five years later. In January 1957 he married Laura Beverley Kalitinsky Robinson (the translator of Margreth Mitscherlich's book The Inability to Mourn) in Orange, Essex, NJ/USA .
In 1993, the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Vienna set up an initiative to honor the students expelled during National Socialism in 1938, and the Department of Art History was the first to name a person affected still alive and invited the distinguished scholar to Vienna to a talk with students and celebrities on October 14th, 1993, and to "admit him into the community of teachers and learners of the University of Vienna and honor him for his scholarly merits" at an academic ceremony on October 19th.
Adolf Kurt Placzek died at the age of 87 on March 19th, 2000 in Manhattan, New York City, NY/USA.
Today his name is mentioned on the "Memorial to the Excluded, Emigrated and Murdered of the Art History Department of the University of Vienna" on the campus of the University of Vienna, unveiled in 2008, and he and 20 other formerly expelled students specializing in art history were remembered in the 2010 exhibition "Excluded, Expelled, Murdered" at the Department of Art History of the University of Vienna.
In 1999 and 2000, he published two autobiographical books about his life in Vienna before his flight.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1931-1934, PHIL 1934-1938; Austrian State Archives OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ VVSt/ VA/ 5629; RÖDER 1983, 90; PLACZEK 1999; PLACZEK 2000; BOLBECHER/KAISER 2000; BRANDSTETTER 2007, 1409; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 222, 275, 410f.
Herbert Posch
