Eva Hollo Vecsei is a Hungarian-Canadian architect. She began her career in Budapest and emigrated to Montreal in 1957, where she established Vecsei Architects with her husband in 1984.
Biography
Vecsei was born Eva Hollo in 1930 in Vienna. She completed a Bachelor of Architecture at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, graduating in 1952. After graduating, she taught at the university's architectural school until 1953 as an assistant professor. In 1954 she designed housing for miners in Tatabánya and during 1955–1956 she worked on a school and housing project in Lágymányos. Eva Vecsei and her husband, André Vecsei, who married in 1952, emigrated to Canada after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and settled in Montreal in 1957. She became a naturalized citizen of Canada in 1962. In 1958 she began working for the architectural firmArcop, for whom she was the head project designer on the construction of Place Bonaventure from 1964 to 1967. Place Bonaventure was among the most significant projects of her career, and press coverage of the building's construction at the time highlighted Vecsei's gender, to her disapproval. Vecsei left Arcop in 1971 to join Dimitri Dimakopoulos' practice. She worked there until 1973, when she opened her own practice, Eva H. Vecsei Architect, in Montreal. She designed La Cité—an extensive and controversial project in downtown Montreal comprising an office building, a hotel, three residential towerblocks, and a retail area—from 1973 to 1977. Vecsei and her husband later went into practice together, co-establishing Vecsei Architects in 1984. Together, they designed an office building in Karachi, Pakistan, and a public library and cultural centre in the Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. Vecsei has received numerous honours throughout her architectural career. She became a fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 1988 and was made an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1990. She won the Canadian ArchitectAward of Excellence in 1983 and the Médaille du Mérite from the Order of Architects of Quebec in 2004. She was the only Canadian woman included in the 1980 directory Contemporary Architects compiled by Mildred Schmertz.
