Franz and Grete Hillinger Collection

Franz Hillinger was born in 1895 as Ferenc (Feri) Hillinger in Grosswardein/Nagyvárad in Austria-Hungary (today Oradea, Romania), the son of Jewish parents. His parents were Miksa (Max) and Rosa (née Schwartz) Hillinger, owners of a hotel and restaurant, and he had a younger brother, Kalman. From 1915-1918 he served in the Austro-Hungarian army on the Italian front. While studying architecture in Budapest, unrest led to Jewish students being barred from studying, so in 1919 he went to Berlin to study architecture at the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg, from which he graduated in 1922; while in Berlin he met Grete Grigoleit.

Grete was born on August 14, 1900 in Tilsit, East Prussia, the daughter of Martin and Bertha Auguste (née Süß) Grigoleit, who were Lutherans. After Martin's bicycle business failed, the couple had moved to Berlin, where he found a position at the electrical firm Siemens. They were able to buy land in Brieselang, outside of Berlin, where by 1925 they had a built a house with fruit trees and a large garden.

During the 1920s, Franz Hillinger held various positions as an architect, including the design of single-family homes and villas. From 1924-1934 he worked at GEHAG (Gemeinnützigen Heimstätten-, Spar- und Bau- Akteingesellschaft), where he designed and constructed housing projects with the well-known architects Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner. He also taught architecture at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg. In 1933 he lost his position at GEHAG due to being Jewish.

Franz and Grete Hillinger had two children: Claude (born Klaus) Hillinger and Edith Hillinger, both born in Berlin, in 1930 and 1933, respectively.

In 1937 the Hillingers went to Turkey, where Franz Hillinger worked for the Turkish Education Ministry. He designed secondary and trade schools for the agency in Ankara, Istanbul, and Trabzon, including the Chemical Institute of the University of Istanbul and the New Technical University in Ankara. From 1937-1940 he was a professor of architectural design at the State Academy for Fine Art (Güzel Satlar Akademisi) in Istanbul.

In 1948, Grete Hillinger and their children immigrated to the United States, but as a result of having been born in Romania, Franz Hillinger had a wait of years to immigrate due to quota restrictions. In 1950 he converted to Catholicism as part of an unsuccessful attempt to come to the United States via Brazil.

From 1951-1952 Franz Hillinger worked as an architect in Canada, and in 1953-1956 returned to work in Turkey, designing the reconstruction of the Turkish Parliament. In 1956 Franz Hillinger joined his family in New York, where he worked as an architect from 1956 until 1970. He died in New York in 1973. Grete Hillinger died in 1996.