Krischanitz was born in Schwarzach im Pongau, Salzburg, Austria.

[1] From 1974 through 1987 he was a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and from 1988 to 1989, a guest professor at the Technical University of Munich.

Since 1992, he has been a professor of design and urban development at the Berlin University of the Arts.

Krischanitz has been a freelance architect in Vienna since 1979, the same year in which he co-founded the magazine UM BAU (About Building).

He served as the chairman of the Austrian Society for Architecture in 1982, and from 1991 to 1995 he was president of the Vienna Secession, a post first held by Gustav Klimt, one of the organization's co-founders.