Wittgenstein's Hut in Skjolden, Norway



Wittgenstein's Patent

 I recently became interested in Ludwig Wittgenstein for the main reason that here was a man that bridged three distinct fields and managed to design, produce, build, record and publish in these fields over his lifetime. Engineering at Manchester University where he developed and patented  "Improvements in propellers applicable for aerial machines." A propeller equipped with small jet engines at the blade tips.  Philosophy, first with the publication of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and finally in architecture where he kept a mountain hut in Norway that he used as a refuge of solitude for his writings and in Vienna where he helped design and build a house for his sister that was the essence of the clean, uncluttered lines of modernism.  The architecture of the hut and house fascinated me because they represent two insights into Wittgenstein's thinking.  The pure austerity of his thought and philosophy that are exemplified in the isolation of his Norwegian mountain hut and the same philosophical characteristics that actually take form in the house in Vienna where the sparse beauty of line, form and detail manifest his words in three dimensions.

Wittgenstein House in Vienna