Elsa Prochazka studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology from 1966 to 1970 and then in Ernst A. Plischke’s master class at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, graduating in 1973.
In 1974, she founded the IGIRIEN planning consortium with the architects Werner Appelt and Franz E. Kneissl. This existed until the mid-1980s. From 1980 she worked as an independent architect and civil engineer. Her work focuses on housing and urban development, public buildings, office and industrial construction, museum conception and exhibition design, design and crossover, and corporate architecture.
From 1992 to 1996 she was a university professor for design in an urban context at the Gesamthochschule University of Kassel. From 1998 to 2001 she held a lectureship as Visiting Examiner at University College London, Department of Architecture, The Bartlett. From 2001 to 2013, Prochazka was professor and head of the “space & design strategies” course at the University of Art and Industrial Design Linz, 2014 Visiting Professor at the University of Naples Federico II, 2020/21 Visiting Professor Politecnico di Milano.
She is a member of the Vienna Secession, Advisory Board for Urban Planning and Design in Vienna 1996-1999, 2001-2009 Chair of the Senate of the University of Art Linz, Property Advisory Board Vienna, 2002-2008 (Chair), from 2011 to 2015 member and Chair of the Design Advisory Board Salzburg, member of the Architectural Advisory Board of the Federal Real Estate Company from 2013-2017 (Chair 2014-2017).