Butzek, the son of a teacher, was introduced to the construction industry by his grandfather at an early age. After completing masonry training and attending the Royal Prussian Building Trade School in Kattowitz, he worked from 1904 as a construction technician and site manager, later in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1908 he enrolled as an “extraordinary student” at the Technical University of Stuttgart and completed an internship in Theodor Fischer’s master studio. He then worked in the “Saalecker Werkstätten,” an influential architectural workshop of the reform movement.
In 1912 he settled in Güstrow as a freelance architect, working in a simplified Neo-Baroque style until World War I. From 1915 to 1918 he served as a soldier. After returning, he worked until 1922 for the Agricultural Chamber of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and co-founded the Association of Rostock Artists in 1919. From 1922 onward, he worked in Rostock as a freelance architect and chairman of the local artists’ association, creating notable residential complexes and industrial buildings in the style of "Neues Bauen".
During World War II he served in occupied Poland from 1940 to 1942, then worked in Rostock as an expert on war-related building damage. After 1945 he developed concepts for rationalized housing construction. Beginning in 1950 he headed a design brigade for building and industrial construction; he resigned in 1955 for health reasons but remained deputy chief architect of the city of Rostock until 1958.
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