Haus Wittgenstein

Last updated
Haus Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein haus.jpg
Haus Wittgenstein
Haus Wittgenstein
Alternative namesStonborough House, Wittgenstein House
General information
Architectural style Modernist
Address Kundmanngasse
Town or city Vienna
Country Austria
Coordinates 48°12′12″N16°23′40″E / 48.20325°N 16.39431°E / 48.20325; 16.39431
Current tenantsBulgarian Embassy
Opened25 December 1928
Client Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein
Design and construction
Architect(s) Paul Engelmann

Haus Wittgenstein (also known as the Stonborough House and the Wittgenstein House) is a house in the modernist style on the Kundmanngasse, Vienna, Austria. It "shows remarkably similar characteristics in its obsession with detail and complete disregard for the requirements of the people who are expected to live within it." The house was commissioned by Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, who asked the architect Paul Engelmann to design a townhouse for her. Stonborough-Wittgenstein invited her brother, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, to help with the design. In the end, he became more author than helper.

Contents

Commission

In November 1925 Stonborough-Wittgenstein commissioned Engelmann to design a large townhouse. She later invited her brother, Ludwig Wittgenstein, to help with the design, in part to distract him[ citation needed ] from the scandal surrounding the Haidbauer incident in April 1926: Wittgenstein, while working as a primary-school teacher, had hit a boy who had subsequently collapsed.

Wittgenstein worked on Haus Wittgenstein between 1926 and 1929. Haus Wittgenstein, Stonborough House, Vienna.jpg
Wittgenstein worked on Haus Wittgenstein between 1926 and 1929.

The initial architect was Paul Engelmann, someone Wittgenstein had come to know while training to be an artillery officer in Olomouc. [1] Engelmann designed a spare modernist house after the style of Adolf Loos: three rectangular blocks. Wittgenstein showed a great interest in the project and in Engelmann's plans and poured himself into the project for over two years, to such a degree that Engelmann himself considered Wittgenstein the author of the final product. He focused on the windows, doors, door knobs, and radiators, demanding that every detail be exactly as he specified, to the point where everyone involved in the project was exhausted. When the house was nearly finished, he had a ceiling raised 30 mm so that the room had the exact proportions he wanted. [2]

One of the architects, Jacques Groag, wrote in a letter: "I come home very depressed with a headache after a day of the worst quarrels, disputes, vexations, and this happens often. Mostly between me and Wittgenstein." [3]

Waugh writes that Margaret eventually refused to pay for the changes Wittgenstein kept demanding, so he bought himself a lottery ticket in the hope of paying for things that way. [3] It took him a year to design the door handles, and another to design the radiators. Each window was covered by a metal screen that weighed 150 kg, moved by a pulley Wittgenstein designed. Bernhard Leitner, author of The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein, said of it that there is barely anything comparable in the history of interior design: "It is as ingenious as it is expensive. A metal curtain that could be lowered into the floor." [2]

Completion

"I am not interested in erecting a building, but in [...] presenting to myself the foundations of all possible buildings."

— Ludwig Wittgenstein [4]

The house was finished by December 1928, and the family gathered there that Christmas to celebrate its completion. Describing the work, Ludwig's eldest sister, Hermine, wrote: "Even though I admired the house very much, I always knew that I neither wanted to, nor could, live in it myself. It seemed indeed to be much more a dwelling for the gods than for a small mortal like me". [2] Paul Wittgenstein, Ludwig's brother, disliked it, and when Margaret's nephew came to sell it, he reportedly did so on the grounds that she had never liked it either. [3]

Wittgenstein himself found the house too austere, saying it had good manners, but no primordial life or health. [5] He nevertheless seemed committed to the idea of becoming an architect: the Vienna City Directory listed him as "Dr Ludwig Wittgenstein, occupation: architect" between 1933 and 1938. [6]

After World War II

After World War II, the house became a barracks and stables for Russian soldiers. It was owned by Thomas Stonborough, son of Margaret, until 1968, when it was sold to the developer and former SS-Member Franz Katlein, for demolition. [7] For two years after this the house was under threat of demolition. The Vienna Landmark Commission saved it — after a campaign by Bernhard Leitner — and made it a national monument in 1971. Since 1975 it has housed the cultural department of the Bulgarian Embassy. [2]

Notes

  1. Englemann, Paul (1967). Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir. New York: Horizon Press. pp. 62–63.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Jeffries, Stuart. "A dwelling for the gods", The Guardian, 5 January 2002.
  3. 1 2 3 Waugh, Alexander. The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War. Random House of Canada, 2008. p. 163 ff.
  4. Lewis Hyde, Making It, New York Times, April 6, 2008.
  5. Hyde, Lewis. "Making It". The New York Times, 6 April 2008.
  6. Bartley, W.W. Wittgenstein. Open Court, p. 21; first published 1972, this edition 1994.
  7. Monk, Ray (1991). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius . Penguin. pp.  238. ISBN   978-0140159950. Katlein is a grandfather of lizvlx of Ubermorgen.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwig Wittgenstein</span> Austrian philosopher and logician (1889–1951)

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Loos</span> Austrian and Czechoslovak architect and theorist of modern architecture

Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was inspired by modernism and a widely-known critic of the Art Nouveau movement. His controversial views and literary contributions sparked the establishment of the Vienna Secession movement and postmodernism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedensreich Hundertwasser</span> Austrian-born visual artist

Friedrich Stowasser, better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, was an Austrian visual artist and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Wittgenstein</span> Musical artist

Paul Wittgenstein was an Austrian-American concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern architecture</span> Architectural movement and style

Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, was an architectural movement and style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco and later postmodern movements. Modern architecture was based upon new and innovative technologies of construction ; the principle functionalism ; an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Troost</span> German architect

Paul Ludwig Troost was a German architect. A favourite master builder of Adolf Hitler from 1930, his Neoclassical designs for the Führerbau, the Verwaltungsbau der NSDAP and the Haus der Kunst in Munich influenced the style of Nazi architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Behrens</span> German architect and designer (1868–1940)

Peter Behrens was a leading German architect, graphic and industrial designer, best known for his early pioneering AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin in 1909. He had a long career, designing objects, typefaces, and important buildings in a range of styles from the 1900s to the 1930s. He was a foundation member of the German Werkbund in 1907, when he also began designing for AEG, pioneered corporate design, graphic design, producing typefaces, objects, and buildings for the company. In the next few years, he became a successful architect, a leader of the rationalist / classical German Reform Movement of the 1910s. After WW1 he turned to Brick Expressionism, designing the remarkable Hoechst Administration Building outside Frankfurt, and from the mid-1920s increasingly to New Objectivity. He was also an educator, heading the architecture school at Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1922 to 1936. As a well known architect he produced design across Germany, in other European countries, Russia and England. Several of the leading names of European modernism worked for him when they were starting out in the 1910s, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiener Moderne</span> Culture of Vienna in the period between 1890 and 1910

The Wiener Moderne or Viennese Modernism is a term describing the culture of Vienna in the period between approximately 1890 and 1910. It refers especially to the development of modernism in the Austrian capital and its effect on the spheres of philosophy, literature, music, art, design and architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Wittgenstein</span>

Karl Otto Clemens Wittgenstein was a German-born Austrian steel tycoon. A friend of Andrew Carnegie, with whom he was often compared, at the end of the 19th century he controlled an effective monopoly on steel and iron resources within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and had by the 1890s acquired one of the largest fortunes in the world. He was also the father of concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and of philanthropist Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein</span>

Margaret "Gretl" Stonborough-Wittgenstein of the prominent and wealthy Viennese Wittgenstein family, was a sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein. She was the subject of a famous 1905 portrait painted for her wedding by the artist Gustav Klimt, which was sold in 1960 by her son Thomas and may now be seen in the Alte Pinakothek gallery in Munich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Objectivity (architecture)</span> Architecture movement in (mainly German-speaking) Europe

The New Objectivity is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen. The New Objectivity remodeled many German cities in this period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josef Hoffmann</span> Austrian architect (1870–1956)

Josef Hoffmann was an Austrian-Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architectural work is the Stoclet Palace, in Brussels, (1905–1911) a pioneering work of Modern Architecture, Art Deco and peak of Vienna Secession architecture.

Paul Engelmann was a Viennese architect who is now best known for his friendship with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein between 1916 and 1928, and for being Wittgenstein's partner in the design and building of the Stonborough House, in Vienna. His Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein With a Memoir was translated by L. Furtmüller and published in 1967 by Basil Blackwell.

<i>Correction</i> (novel) 1975 novel by Thomas Bernhard

Correction is a novel by Thomas Bernhard, originally published in German in 1975, and first published in English translation in 1979 by Alfred A. Knopf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haidbauer incident</span> Physical assault of a child by Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Haidbauer incident, known in Austria as der Vorfall Haidbauer, took place in April 1926 when Josef Haidbauer, an 11-year-old schoolboy in Otterthal, Austria, reportedly collapsed unconscious after being hit on the head during a class by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belvedere 21</span> Modernist style steel and glass building in Vienna, Austria

Belvedere 21, formerly 21er Haus or Einundzwanziger Haus, is a modernist style steel and glass building designed by Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer (1918–1975). Originally constructed as the Austrian pavilion or temporary showroom for the Expo 58 in Brussels, it was later transferred to Vienna to house the Museum of the 20th Century, which explains why it was first nicknamed "20er Haus". Between 1979 and 2001, the building also acted as a depository for contemporary art works. From 2009 to 2011, it was remodeled by the architect Adolf Krischanitz and consequently renamed 21er Haus to reflect the 21st century. It was renamed Belvedere 21 in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">23 Beekman Place</span> Apartment building in Manhattan, New York

23 Beekman Place, also the Paul Rudolph Apartment & Penthouse, is an apartment building between 50th and 51st streets in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built c. 1869 as a five-story brownstone residence, it was substantially redesigned in the late 20th century by Paul Rudolph, an American architect and one-time dean of Yale University. It is one of the few known projects Rudolph designed in the city.

Edward "Terry" Walter Rail Waugh was a South African architect known for helping to bring Modern architecture to the southern United States and North Carolina in particular through his association with the School of Design at North Carolina State College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wittgenstein family</span>

The Wittgenstein family is a German-Austrian family that rose to prominence in 19th- and 20th-century Vienna, Austria. The family was originally Jewish and originated from the Wittgensteiner Land in Siegen-Wittgenstein, Germany.

References