Emil Pirchan was a master pupil of Otto Wagner from 1903 to 1906; In 1908 he moved to Munich, where in 1913 he opened his own art school for set design and applied graphics. In 1918 he was named director of set design at the Bavarian State Theatre, in 1921 he was called in this capacity to the State Theatre in Berlin. In 1932 Pirchan moved to Prague as head of set design at the German Theatre; in 1936 he was invited to Vienna as a professor at the Academy of the Visual Arts.

He assumed the directorship of the Master School for Set Design until his death in 1957 and worked as a set designer at the Burgtheater and the State Opera in Vienna. During the period in Munich, were created. Along with 1,500 graphic works (including bookplates) and his theatre work involving around 500 complete designs, he wrote technical literature, novels and artist monographs, including the very first monograph about Gustav Klimt. Pirchan’s designs were pioneering in their impact. He is considered to be one of the forerunners of the reform movements of the early twentieth century.