Architecture language critique. around paul engelmann: 31 (Studien zur Österreichischen Philosophie) - Softcover

Paul Engelmann was Adolf Loos's favorite pupil, private secretary to Karl Kraus and Ludwig Wittgenstein's most important interlocutor in the years between 1916 and 1928 as well as his partner in building the Stonborough House. Thus it was that the trenchant critique of modernity associated with Wittgenstein's Vienna originated around Paul Engelmann. The present volume of essays from an international symposium in Aarhus, Denmark in 1999 offers an interdisciplinary perspective on issues bearing upon architecture, language and cultural criticism as they relate to the life's work of Paul Engelmann.

Born in Olomouc (Olmutz) in 1891 Paul Engelmann was one of the first pupils of Adolf Loos at his newly founded Bauschule, private secretary of Karl Kraus and friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein at the time he finished his Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus. Thus Engelmann was in a superb situation to clarify the link between the three. By drawing attention to Wittgenstein's affinities to Kraus and Loos Engelmann laid the foundations for the "Viennese" interpretation of Wittgenstein's early philosophy. Engelmann's view of Wittgenstein became the first source for the interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophy as essentially containing a profound ethical component with a powerful critique of modern Western culture. However, Engelmann's significance does not end here. Besides his work as an architect he wrote a lot on psychology, philosophy, culture and society. His various activities in various fields and the various places where he lived, Olomouc, Vienna and Tel Aviv, are ideally suited for interdisciplinary and international research and for framing diverse cultural phenomena in one comprehensive picture. Thus the present volume, the third in a series, offers an interdisciplinary perspective with focus on the interrelations between language, cultural critique and architecture. It originates in an international symposium which took place in Aarhus, Denmark 1999.