Victor Fürth

Biography
Victor Fürth was an architect and educator of Jewish descent, who worked in Prague in the 1920s and 1930s. Before World War II, he emigrated to England and later to the USA. He was a close collaborator of Ernst Mühlstein. He was born in Horažďovice into a German Jewish family. His father was a co-owner of a factory that produced paper from straw. After a factory fire, the family relocated to Prague, where his father initially worked as a merchant and later became an industrialist. Victor Fürth attended the German secondary school in Mikulandská Street in Prague, where he befriended Ernst Mühlstein, his classmate. In 1910, after graduating from secondary school, both began studying at the German Technical University in Prague. Victor Fürth interrupted his studies during the war and returned to school in the fall of 1918. He completed his studies in 1921, and between 1923-25, he and Ernst Mühlstein established a design studio, where they both worked until 1939. Due to their background, both architects went into exile in England in 1939, where their paths diverged. Ernst Mühlstein continued on to Australia, while for Victor Fürth and his family, England became their home for the next ten years. He significantly contributed to the post-war reconstruction of London with his projects and became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). In 1949, he received a job offer for the position of visiting professor of architecture at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, USA. He traveled to the USA, where he settled, and four years later, his wife Martha and son Martin followed him. From 1954, he became a full professor of architecture at Miami University and continued to work there on a part-time basis after retiring.