Page - 40 - in Demolished Modified Endangered - Modelling Austrian Architecture Of The 20th Century

40 HAUS WITTGENSTEIN BY LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN & PAUL ENGELMANN Year 1928 Status Modified Material Concrete Scale 1:200 Model maker Markus Schaller In 1925 the architect Paul Engelmann, a former student of Adolf Loos, was commissioned by Margarethe Stonborough, the sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, to design her private residence. The building was situated at Kundmanngasse 19, in the 3rd district of Vienna and was built from 1926 to 1928.1 From the beginning onwards, the architect Paul Engelmann, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the client Margarethe Stonborough worked closely together in order to design the floor plans as well as the details of the building. The house was entered through a small room with stairs leading to the main entrance hall in the centre of the building. The main entrance hall was connected directly with the representative rooms such as the dining room, the music room, the living room, the library and the main terrace. A corridor led to a staircase, the glazed lift, the master bedroom, and the private room and office room of a servant. All details in the house, such as the sanded concrete floor, the simple light bulbs used as main ceiling lights, the special heating solutions, the doors and windows usually used in factories, were designed by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Her brother forbade Margarethe, the owner, to decorate the rooms with curtains, carpets and chandeliers. Upon completion, the building was ignored by the press as well as by colleagues of Paul Engelmann. It was not until the late 1960s that the building received any form of recognition.2 1 Architekturzentrum Wien (Ed.) (2016): Architektur in Österreich im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Zürich: Park Books. 314. 2 Leitner, Bernhard (2000): Das Wittgenstein Haus. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. 22-35.