Attila Kotányi grew up in Budapest, and in his youth he was part of an intellectual circle surrounding the philosophers Lajos Szabó and Béla Hamvas. Following the failed Hungarian revolution in 1956, he emigrated with his family to Brussels, where he studied architecture and urbanism. According to his wife, he preferred conversations to letters, and more than once, triggered by a book,  Kotányi would locate the author, travel to his home, ring the bell, and present himself. This seems to have been the case with Guy Debord in 1960.

Kotányi became involved with the Situationist International (SI) in 1960, the same year he became director of the so-called Bureau of Unitary Urbanism in Brussels. He participated in the group’s conferences held in September 1960 in London, August 1961 in Göteborg, and November 1962 in Antwerp. During these years he became a close friend of Guy Debord, and was appointed to the Central Council of the SI; he participated in the first four sessions, held in November 1960 in Brussels, January 1961 in Paris, April 1961 in Munich, and February 1962 in Paris. Kotányi served as the main editor of issues 5, 6 and 8 of Internationale Situationniste, as well as the inaugural issue of Situationistik Revolution, published in October 1962. In October 1963, he was excluded from the group.

He contributed a number of seminal essays to the journal, including “Gangland and Philosophy,” 1961, “Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism,” 1961, co-authored with Raoul Vaneigem, and the most famous, “Theses on the Commune,” on which he collaborated in 1962 with Debord and Vangeiem.

Kotányi then relocated to Germany, where he taught for over a decade at the Dusseldorf Art Academy. During this period he continued to write political and philosophical essays, as well as poetry, and he developed small architectural projects and painted. In the 1990s he returned to Budapest, where he became a central figure in the intellectual life of the city. He elaborated his Sabbath theory, a call for a radical suspension of activity. A circle of students and young intellectuals gathered around him during these final years. He died in Düsseldorf in 2003.