Susan Kozma-Orlay

Hungarian–Australian architect and designer (1913–2008)

Kunstgewerbeschule

OccupationArchitect, designer, furniture designerParent(s)

Lajos Kozma

[edit on Wikidata]

Susan Kozma-Orlay (born Zsuzsa Kozma; 1913–2008) was a Hungarian–Australian mid-century modernist designer.

Biography

Zsuzsa Kozma was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1913. Her father was the architect and critic Lajos Kozma [hu].^[1]^[2]

She attended the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts) in both Stuttgart and Vienna, where she studied furniture design and graphic design.^[1]^[2] She then worked in her father's Vienna architecture studio until his activity was curtailed by anti-Jewish restrictions. After the war, in the late 1940s, she married and emigrated to Australia (where she Anglicised her name to Susan Orlay).^[1]^[3]

Her career in Australia spanned textile design, illustration, store displays and graphics for the department store David Jones, furniture design, and interior design.^[3]

Her work was exhibited in the exhibition The Moderns: European Designers in Sydney at the Museum of Sydney in 2017,^[4] and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert museum in London.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

Publications

Franks, Rachel (2017). "From the Margins to the Mainstream". In Hawcroft, Rebecca (ed.). The Other Moderns: Sydney's Forgotten European Design Legacy. Sydney: (NewSouth) University of New South Wales Press Limited. p. 165-190. ISBN 9781742235561.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Susan Orlay :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online". www.daao.org.au. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
^ ^a ^b "Susan Kozma-Orlay". The Other Moderns. 2017-10-04. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
^ ^a ^b "The Other Moderns: Sydney's Forgotten European Design Legacy | The Dictionary of Sydney". dictionaryofsydney.org. Retrieved 2023-08-24.
^ Lush, Rebecca (2017-08-01). "Museum of Sydney: The Moderns". Curate Your Own Adventure. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
^ "Drinks Trolley, 1938–1939 (designed), Zsuzsa Kozma". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved August 22, 2023.
^ "The sophisticated Modern home · V&A". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
^ "Sydney's forgotten mid-century modernists". Australian Financial Review. 2017-07-20. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
^ Bogle, Michael (2017-01-01). "Design & Architecture Training in Middle Europe between the Wars and the Reception of European Émigré Architects and Designers in Australia". [chapter in] The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy, Rebecca Hawcroft, editor. UNSW Press.