Ida (Liv) Falkenberg-Liefrinck, who later adopted the first name Liv, was born in the Netherlands in 1901. After studying art history in Zurich, she worked in an architectural office there, then later in a Paris furniture store as a draughtswoman and as an employee of Jacobus Oud’s architectural office in Rotterdam. After being involved in the Weißenhofsiedlung and also designing several pieces of furniture and interiors, she began training as a cabinetmaker in Hellerau in 1931. Together with her husband Otto Falkenberg, she fled from the National Socialist regime to the Netherlands in 1933. She also belonged to the architectural groups Opbouw and De 8 during this time.

After the end of the war, her husband, an SED politician, became Minister for Economic Planning in Brandenburg (Soviet occupation zone/GDR) from 1948 to 1950, while she was involved in building projects in Dresden and Potsdam from 1946 to 1949. Due to her husband’s call to the GDR trade mission in Prague, Falkenberg-Liefrinck’s work in the GDR also came to a halt for the time being and she worked as a cultural advisor. During further stays in New Delhi and Moscow, she worked, among other things, on articles for architectural magazines, such as the magazine “Deutsche Architektur”. In the GDR, she worked as an information officer from 1962 to 1970 at VEB Berlin Projekt, which implemented designs by the architect Heinz Graffunder.

She died in Berlin in 2006 at the age of 104.

Among her works are numerous interiors and designs for the Administration Academy in Forst Zinna (1947), the Party College in Kleinmachnow (1947) and the Business School in Plessow (1948). Falkenberg-Liefrinck thus worked as an interior designer and furniture designer as well as an architect and author.