Elizabeth Close
American architect (1912-2011)
Elizabeth "Lisl" Close, (née Scheu; 4 June 1912, in Vienna – 29 November 2011, in Minneapolis) was an influential female architect practicing in Minnesota. During her long partnership with her husband, Winston "Win" Close (1906-1997), she designed many notable public buildings and private homes while managing the family firm for extended periods.
Early life
Born in 1912 in Vienna, Austria, to Gustav Scheu and Helene Scheu née Riesz, Elizabeth Scheu grew up in a house designed by Adolf Loos in 1913, an early practitioner of modern architecture. Artists were frequent guests in the home, including Ezra Pound and John Gunther. She became interested in architecture, in which she graduated at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna. Perhaps because she had a Jewish mother, she left Austria in August 1932—before the arrival of the Nazis—sailing aboard the SS American Merchant from London, and arrived in New York on 29 August 1932. She completed her education in Boston with an M.A. in architecture at MIT in 1935.
Career and marriage
While she was studying in Boston, Close met her future husband, Winston Close, who was also a graduate student. It was not easy for women to enter the architecture profession at the time; after being rejected by two firms, she accepted an appointment by the third and started work in Philadelphia, working under architect Oscar Stonorov. In 1936, she joined the firm in Minneapolis where Winston was employed, Magney and Tusler.
“Elizabeth Close” enters the record as american architect (1912-2011). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Elizabeth, Close and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Elizabeth Close” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Elizabeth, Close and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5362600. VIAF identifies the subject as 101289766. The Library of Congress control number is n2019031940. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 2011, 1906 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elizabeth Close” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.