Marguerite Hohenberg was born Marguerite Kurtz in Vienna, Austria in 1883. When she was six years old, Hohenberg immigrated to the U.S. with her parents, first settling in Peoria, IL and then Chicago.

Hohenberg studied at the University of Chicago and at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. She also traveled to Europe for further study. In 1904 she married Viennese aristocrat Arnold Hohenberg, who worked as a stockbroker in Chicago. Out of necessity during the Depression, Hohenberg opened her own interior design studio, but continued with art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. She also took a modern architecture class at the Chicago Academy of Fine arts, where her instructor, Bruce Goff, was supportive of her becoming an A...