Abraham was an influential architect in his native Austria and the New York avant-garde. Abraham's poetic architectural vision was influenced by the Viennese tradition to align architecture with sculpture, and also by the Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. Abraham theorized architecture on a "collision" course with the needs of humans, yet striving for coexistence, in a constant state of creative tension. Beginning in the late 1950s, his enigmatic architecture placed Abraham among the avant-garde, such as Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and Günther Domenig. In 1958, Abraham collaborated with Friedrich St. Florian, placing 3rd in an international competition to design the Pan Arabian University of Saudi Arabia, and in 1959, placing 2nd, for the design of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Cultural Center in Léopoldville. Abraham criticized mainstream architecture's preoccupation with style, it's indifference to history, and the rigid definition of Modernism at that time. Abraham went on to influence generations of professional architects through architectural drawings, projects, and teaching.