Ernest Fuchs was born in 1906 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. He graduated as an architect from the Technical Unviersity of Vienna in 1929 and completed a doctoral thesis in 1932. He arrived in australia in 1939 and shortly afterwords was appointed as chief assistant to architect and planner Frank Heath at the Housing Commission of Victoria. Fuchs worked on the Garden City estate at Fishermen's Bend and later on Housing Commission estates at Coburg, Swan Hill, Seymour and Horsham. In 1945 he became an Australian citizen and changed his name to Ernest Fooks. In 1948 Fooks left the Housing Commission of Victoria and built up his private practice. Information from Harriet Edquist, Ernest Fooks: architect (RMIT School of Architecture and Design, 2001).