In 1926, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein took over the interior design of a Modernist townhouse in Vienna for his sister, Margarethe. Retaining the overall structure designed by the architect, Paul Engleman, a student of Adolf Loos, Wittgenstein focused on the layout, dimensions and interior fittings – windows, doors, door handles and radiators. Chronologically and conceptually, Haus Wittgenstein comes between Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921/22) and the notes, lectures and posthumous publication of Philosophical Investigations, a radical re-think of his earlier theories of language from the ‘picture theory of meaning’ to ‘language games’. Taking the building as a transitional object, for the two-person exhibition at the Danielle Arnaud Gallery, Jon Bird and Ergin Çavuşoğlu each explored spatial epistemologies through drawings, collage, installations, objects and video.
