Wittgenstein House The Perfect Mechanism

• Published in: The Meaning of Modern Architecture pp. 25 - 42
• Main Author: Morgenthaler, Hans Rudolf
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2015; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Art styles: c 1960; History of architecture; Psychological theory & schools of thought; Theory of architecture; Theory of art; Near Vision; Julius Posener; Wölin; Wide Cube; Deutsche Bauzeitung; Viennese; 18th Century Architect; Rembrandt's Night Watch; Tugendhat House; Viennese Architecture; Alois Riegl; Artistic Volition; Wittgenstein House; Dutch Group Portrait; Paul Westheim; Fischer Von Erlach; Exterior Lead; Author's Collection; Formal Unification; Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye; Barcelona Pavilion; Upward Thrust; Irregular Configuration; Entrance Block
• ISBN: 9781138572348; 9781472453013; 1138572349; 1472453018
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315555669-2

How do architectural historians describe, analyze, and interpret typical Modernist designs? In 1926 Viennese socialite Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein asked her brother, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, to assist architect Paul Engelmann in the design of her new house. The resulting building is one of the most perfect examples of Modernist architecture. That is because we are presented with a set of undecorated building blocks assembled into an irregular configuration. It is a composition of "super- and subordinated cubic volumes, ... of lines, planes and volumes." 1 These forms look precisely executed and lack traditional façade decorations. Upon ascending to the elevated site from the street, one immediately notices a tall cubical mass flanked by additional prisms on the left and right. A small rectangular volume with a door protrudes from the main cube (Figure 1.1). On the left side, a short and narrow box is attached to the tall central shape slightly behind its front; farther back still is a slightly taller and wide cube that is set behind a terrace reached over a few steps and partly cut into the narrow volume immediately adjacent (Figure 1.2). This initial assessment already reveals the overall composition of this building, as it consists of a tall central cube, to which are added two wings.