Karola was a devotee of the Neues Bauen; she was a student of Hans Poelzig and Bruno Taut, and through her friendship with Xanti Schawinsky she was able to spend time at the Bauhaus, though she was never officially enrolled.
In Vienna Karola worked for the architect Jacques Groag, a student of Adolf Loos, and befriended Elias Canetti and Alma Mahler.
Her husband Ernst Bloch once said to her “You practice what I write in my philosophy.”[6] After the Anschluss the couple fled to Paris, where Karola worked in the studio of Auguste Perret.
Karola Bloch worked designing typical plans for kindergartens and daycare centers under commission from the Deutsche Bauakademie (German Building Academy).
[11] In 1957 Karola, who was also politically anti-Stalinist, was forced out of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which meant that she could no longer work as an architect.
For several years she anonymously published articles aimed at women, on topics like more efficient kitchen design and how to read building plans.
When the Berlin Wall was erected on August 31, 1961, the Blochs, on a lecture trip in West Germany, did not return to Leipzig or the GDR, leaving all of their belongings behind.
After 30 years of practicing as an architect Karola Bloch devoted herself entirely to the politics of prisoners and abused women, co-founding the organization Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe (Help for Self-Help).