House Stonborough-Wittgenstein
To understand the charm of Wittgenstein's house, it is necessary to first mention something about its author. Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, a classmate of Adolf Hitler and the greatest and most misunderstood philosopher of the 20th century, was born on April 26, 1889, in Vienna into a very well-known and wealthy family. He trained as a mechanical engineer and then went to Cambridge to study logic and philosophy. After publishing his philosophical book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921 - which among other things contains the famous quote "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"), he concluded that the book had solved all philosophical problems and withdrew from the field. He then went to Vienna, where he distributed his fortune and became a teacher at an elementary school in Lower Austria.
In 1929, his sister (Margarethe Stonborough Wittgenstein) lured him back to Vienna by offering him a collaboration with architect Paul Engelmann (1891-1965) on her villa. Engelmann, a student of Adolf Loos, already had a design that was nearly complete. However, Wittgenstein continually improved the proportions of the individual rooms and was obsessively attached to the symmetry of the individual spaces. This likely accounts for the "mysterious" masonry projection in one of the rooms, which appears to be a chimney vent or a small pillar. However, it serves no such function and is presumably there to create symmetry with the adjacent window, as without it, the window would not be precisely centered on the wall. Incidentally, a whole book has been written about the issue of this projection (Jan Turnovský: The Poetics of the Masonry Projection).
Another example of his fastidiousness can be illustrated by the fact that he had a new ceiling torn down simply because he discovered a deviation of one or two millimeters. For instance, the construction drawings feature dimensions like 1762.5 mm. A dimension accurate to half a millimeter might appear in engineering, but in architecture? In any case, it still retains a certain modular coordination. This can be seen, for example, in the tile pattern plan to avoid having to cut any tiles.
Overall, the house has a very austere appearance, and the technically precise and clean exterior does not match the middle-class interior of the house. Certainly, do not expect something like the Tugendhat Villa, although it can definitely be compared to it to a certain extent. For example, from the street, it appears very unassuming. It is located on a slightly sloping terrain and occupies a whole block. However, it is surrounded by a wall, and at that level, the garden is leveled to a horizontal plane. Thus, there is a difference of about 4 meters from the lower part of the plot to the surrounding terrain. So when you walk by, you only perceive a white wall covered with posters, and above it, you see just a bit of the upper floor.
Currently, just like with the Tugendhat villa, the plot is much smaller than originally. Margarethe's son needed money and sold the entire house. It was bought by the social democracy insurance company, which constructed an extremely ugly tower on half of the garden and wanted to demolish the villa itself. However, heritage protectionists intervened, believing it was built by Adolf Loos, and as such, it would be protected as a monument. They discovered, however, that this was unfortunately not the case, and the villa was saved from demolition only because the Wittgensteins bought it back. This is quite a paradoxical situation where the decision about whether a building is a protected monument does not depend on its qualities but on the name of the architect. Today it is turned into a museum just like the Tugendhat Villa, and similarly, they charge 3 euros for entry.
References:
Jonathan Glancey: Modern Architecture, Albatros, Prague 2004
Jan Turnovský: The Poetics of the Masonry Projection, VVP AVU, Prague 2004
I would like to correct the data about Wittgenstein's villa. It is not true that the Wittgensteins bought it back. Who? Margarete lived in it until 1958, when she died at the age of 76. Her son, Dr. Thomas Stonborough, inherited the house and sold the plot, including the villa, to real estate agent Franz Katlein in 1971. The regulations from May 1965 stated that construction up to 14 meters in height was permitted in the southwestern part. In the northwestern part of the plot, a 14-story building for the social democracy insurance company was approved. Massive protests from the cultural public began against the investor's plan to demolish the villa and build an auditorium 14 meters high for 250 people in its place. Despite the scandalous indifference of Austrian government circles (Bruno Kreisky - social democrat and then chancellor is silent - it is about the social democratic insurance company), thanks to international uproar involving significant figures like Max Bill, Phillis Lambert, Bernhard Leitner, Oskar Kokoschka, Arnold Schönberg, and others, the destruction of the villa was prevented. On June 21, 1971, it was decided that Wittgenstein's villa would not be demolished. However, in May 1975, a banal, dark brown, 14-story administrative building belonging to the insurance company was erected just 12 meters from the villa. Contact with the villa consists of two circular ramps leading to underground garages, and a brutal awning above the entrance symbolically expresses the insurance company's effort to grasp and destroy the villa with bent steel beams. An absurd point at the end. The daughter of Bulgarian communist ruler Todor Zhivkov (nicknamed Ted Jenkins © Luboš Mutňanský) is interested in architecture, and as a proper prominent child, she studies not in Moscow but in Cambridge, where she becomes involved in the fight to preserve Wittgenstein's villa. What would a father not do for his beloved daughter? By his command and at his daughter's request, certainly significantly "influenced" by young colleagues from school, the villa was purchased by the People's Republic of Bulgaria from Katlein in December 1975 for 6 million schillings (approximately 15 million crowns). Since 1977, the building has served as a cultural center of the Republic of Bulgaria, still operating today, and entry is possible to the unfurnished interior for 3 euros. Ludmila Zhivkova became significantly famous in the field of architecture, primarily for organizing Sofia Architecture Biennales in the 1970s and 1980s, where the greatest stars of architecture participated. Additionally, on her initiative, a congress palace was built in the center of Sofia for these purposes, of course also for party congresses, but she managed to attract the Japanese superstar Kisho Kurokawa, who realized a high-rise hotel with Japanese gardens in Sofia. The dating is also incorrect, as on October 26, 1926, a building permit was issued to Margarethe W-S, and in November 1928, the Stonborough family moved from Palais Schönborg in Vienna I, Renngasse 4, to Kundmanngasse 19 in Vienna III (W villa). In 1939, the family spent their last Christmas there and left for the USA. From 1940 to 1945, there was a complete destruction of the original furnishings; the house was used by the Red Cross and also served as a military hospital. The similarity with the Tugendhat villa is as follows: in addition to folding shutters into the floor, which predate the folding windows at Tugendhat, it involves the stabling of horses and the presence of the Red Army in the building in 1945. Subsequently, a demobilization center was established there. Margarethe returned to Vienna in 1947 and lived there until her death, and we are back at the beginning of the text.
I want to commend the student who initiated the topic of villa W, but it is good to go to solid sources. In this case, to the book The Wittgenstein House, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, Bernhard Leitner, ISBN 1-56898-251-8, in the library of FA VUT Brno.
In 1929, his sister (Margarethe Stonborough Wittgenstein) lured him back to Vienna by offering him a collaboration with architect Paul Engelmann (1891-1965) on her villa. Engelmann, a student of Adolf Loos, already had a design that was nearly complete. However, Wittgenstein continually improved the proportions of the individual rooms and was obsessively attached to the symmetry of the individual spaces. This likely accounts for the "mysterious" masonry projection in one of the rooms, which appears to be a chimney vent or a small pillar. However, it serves no such function and is presumably there to create symmetry with the adjacent window, as without it, the window would not be precisely centered on the wall. Incidentally, a whole book has been written about the issue of this projection (Jan Turnovský: The Poetics of the Masonry Projection).
Another example of his fastidiousness can be illustrated by the fact that he had a new ceiling torn down simply because he discovered a deviation of one or two millimeters. For instance, the construction drawings feature dimensions like 1762.5 mm. A dimension accurate to half a millimeter might appear in engineering, but in architecture? In any case, it still retains a certain modular coordination. This can be seen, for example, in the tile pattern plan to avoid having to cut any tiles.
Overall, the house has a very austere appearance, and the technically precise and clean exterior does not match the middle-class interior of the house. Certainly, do not expect something like the Tugendhat Villa, although it can definitely be compared to it to a certain extent. For example, from the street, it appears very unassuming. It is located on a slightly sloping terrain and occupies a whole block. However, it is surrounded by a wall, and at that level, the garden is leveled to a horizontal plane. Thus, there is a difference of about 4 meters from the lower part of the plot to the surrounding terrain. So when you walk by, you only perceive a white wall covered with posters, and above it, you see just a bit of the upper floor.
Currently, just like with the Tugendhat villa, the plot is much smaller than originally. Margarethe's son needed money and sold the entire house. It was bought by the social democracy insurance company, which constructed an extremely ugly tower on half of the garden and wanted to demolish the villa itself. However, heritage protectionists intervened, believing it was built by Adolf Loos, and as such, it would be protected as a monument. They discovered, however, that this was unfortunately not the case, and the villa was saved from demolition only because the Wittgensteins bought it back. This is quite a paradoxical situation where the decision about whether a building is a protected monument does not depend on its qualities but on the name of the architect. Today it is turned into a museum just like the Tugendhat Villa, and similarly, they charge 3 euros for entry.
References:
Jonathan Glancey: Modern Architecture, Albatros, Prague 2004
Jan Turnovský: The Poetics of the Masonry Projection, VVP AVU, Prague 2004
I would like to correct the data about Wittgenstein's villa. It is not true that the Wittgensteins bought it back. Who? Margarete lived in it until 1958, when she died at the age of 76. Her son, Dr. Thomas Stonborough, inherited the house and sold the plot, including the villa, to real estate agent Franz Katlein in 1971. The regulations from May 1965 stated that construction up to 14 meters in height was permitted in the southwestern part. In the northwestern part of the plot, a 14-story building for the social democracy insurance company was approved. Massive protests from the cultural public began against the investor's plan to demolish the villa and build an auditorium 14 meters high for 250 people in its place. Despite the scandalous indifference of Austrian government circles (Bruno Kreisky - social democrat and then chancellor is silent - it is about the social democratic insurance company), thanks to international uproar involving significant figures like Max Bill, Phillis Lambert, Bernhard Leitner, Oskar Kokoschka, Arnold Schönberg, and others, the destruction of the villa was prevented. On June 21, 1971, it was decided that Wittgenstein's villa would not be demolished. However, in May 1975, a banal, dark brown, 14-story administrative building belonging to the insurance company was erected just 12 meters from the villa. Contact with the villa consists of two circular ramps leading to underground garages, and a brutal awning above the entrance symbolically expresses the insurance company's effort to grasp and destroy the villa with bent steel beams. An absurd point at the end. The daughter of Bulgarian communist ruler Todor Zhivkov (nicknamed Ted Jenkins © Luboš Mutňanský) is interested in architecture, and as a proper prominent child, she studies not in Moscow but in Cambridge, where she becomes involved in the fight to preserve Wittgenstein's villa. What would a father not do for his beloved daughter? By his command and at his daughter's request, certainly significantly "influenced" by young colleagues from school, the villa was purchased by the People's Republic of Bulgaria from Katlein in December 1975 for 6 million schillings (approximately 15 million crowns). Since 1977, the building has served as a cultural center of the Republic of Bulgaria, still operating today, and entry is possible to the unfurnished interior for 3 euros. Ludmila Zhivkova became significantly famous in the field of architecture, primarily for organizing Sofia Architecture Biennales in the 1970s and 1980s, where the greatest stars of architecture participated. Additionally, on her initiative, a congress palace was built in the center of Sofia for these purposes, of course also for party congresses, but she managed to attract the Japanese superstar Kisho Kurokawa, who realized a high-rise hotel with Japanese gardens in Sofia. The dating is also incorrect, as on October 26, 1926, a building permit was issued to Margarethe W-S, and in November 1928, the Stonborough family moved from Palais Schönborg in Vienna I, Renngasse 4, to Kundmanngasse 19 in Vienna III (W villa). In 1939, the family spent their last Christmas there and left for the USA. From 1940 to 1945, there was a complete destruction of the original furnishings; the house was used by the Red Cross and also served as a military hospital. The similarity with the Tugendhat villa is as follows: in addition to folding shutters into the floor, which predate the folding windows at Tugendhat, it involves the stabling of horses and the presence of the Red Army in the building in 1945. Subsequently, a demobilization center was established there. Margarethe returned to Vienna in 1947 and lived there until her death, and we are back at the beginning of the text.
I want to commend the student who initiated the topic of villa W, but it is good to go to solid sources. In this case, to the book The Wittgenstein House, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, Bernhard Leitner, ISBN 1-56898-251-8, in the library of FA VUT Brno.
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