Abstract
Over more than four decades, the Austrian economist, sociologist, and philosopher, Otto Neurath made unique contributions to the fields of museology and curation, which culminated in the founding of the Social and Economic Museum of Vienna and its mobile exhibitions in the 1920s. But until today, Neurath’s involvement in the organization of portable “field exhibitions,” which predated those at the Social and Economic Museum by at least half a decade remains understudied. In this essay, I argue that field exhibitions, which were informed by Neurath’s theories on war economy, are instructive in analyzing his overall curatorial ideas. Staged on the outskirts of the city in collaboration with allotment garden and settlement cooperatives, these exhibitions utilized plans and diagrams to convey social and political statements of facts through pictorial statistics and everyday objects. By pairing abstract graphic information with commonplace objects, they invited inhabitants into a conversation about the material world as well as the future by drawing on personal experience. As such, these field exhibitions created a communal environment for viewing and debating information and championed what I call “a collaborative practice of seeing.”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For this research, I have relied on the visual archives of a number of still existing Viennese cooperatives and associations. I would like to extend my gratitude to Karl Sedlak, Chairman of the Altmannsdorf-Hetzendorf cooperative and Sylvia Wohatschek, clerk woman of the Austrian League of Allotment Gardeners for opening their archives to me and for revealing materials previously believed to be lost or missing. I would like to acknowledge the Graham Foundation’s support for this research, which allowed me to digitize these rare materials and I thank Ádám Tuboly and Günther Sandner as well as my Harvard research partners Elizabeth Keto, Spencer Glesby, and Lara Teich for their commentary and feedback on this work.
- 2.
For the history of war-time resource shortages and alimentation in the city of Vienna see Healy (2004).
- 3.
Different acronyms and translations have been used for the Österreichicher Verband für Siedlungs- und Kleingartenwesen. Where possible, I have relied on Eve Blau’s (1999) translations.
- 4.
Neurath became involved in the affairs of settlement and allotment garden cooperatives in 1920 and assumed leadership in the Hauptverband für Siedlungs- und Kleingartenwesen in January of 1921, representing the affairs of settlers and – though to a lesser. In October of 1921 Hauptverband für Siedlungs- und Kleingartenwesen was unified with Zentralverband für Kleingärtner und Siedlungsgenossenschaften, henceforth operating as ÖSVK with Neurath acting as Secretary. For Neurath’s involvement in the ÖVSK see Novy (1981), Hoffmann (1982), Blau (1999, 89–133), Vossoughian (2008, 27–44), Sandner (2014, 165–171).
- 5.
- 6.
There has been some previous interest in elucidating Neurath’s engagement with the “everyday.” See, for example, the work of McElvenny (2013) and Michelle Henning’s chapter in the present volume.
- 7.
Nader Vossoughian has suggested that “there was nothing ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ about the Museum of Society and Economy’s collection,” (2008, 79) and Hadwig Kraeutler (2010, 165) further showed that Neurath’s ideas about museology allowed putting objects on view that escaped simplistic divisions low and high art as well as a long-valued culture of connoisseurship.
- 8.
Letter by Otto Neurath to Anton Weber, August 7 (1924), Papers of the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum, Verein für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung; cf. Neurath (1936, 70).
- 9.
On ISOTYPE, see Angélique Groß’s, Elisabeth Nemeth’s , and Silke Körber’s chapters in the present volume.
- 10.
The citation leads up to one of Neurath’s most well cited aphorisms “words divide – pictures unite.”
- 11.
The same idea of utilizing materials in various ways and of how museums shall represent these could be found also in “Museums of the Future:” “Isn’t it curious: we are constantly told that we are living in the age of technology, and yet when we enter a modern museum of natural history, there is no sign of it. […] A huge whale hangs in the middle of the hall; but we do not learn how the ‘beard’ is transformed into oldfashioned corsets, how the skin is transformed into shoes, or the fat into soap that finds its way to the dressing room of a beautiful woman” (Neurath 1933b, 459.)
- 12.
Peter Galison (1990) explored Neurath’s involvement in Bauhaus debates.
- 13.
- 14.
In the federal Austrian legislative election of 1920, the Social Democratic Party lost their lead to the Christian Social Party taking 36 and 41.8% of the vote respectively. In the Austrian Constitutional Assembly of the previous year, 1919 the results had been almost in reverse with the Christian Social Part taking 35.9% of the vote and the Social Democratic Party 40.8%. In the municipal elections in Vienna, in 1919, Social Democrats won with an absolute majority of 54,2%, followed by the Christian Social Party with 27.1%. The stark difference between capital and the federal states, defined political rifts throughout the progressive period known as Red Vienna.
- 15.
These numbers slightly vary, but Adolf Müller (1923, 19) and Otto Neurath (1923a, 19) cited that there had been between 30,000 and 40,000 members of allotment garden communities in 1923.
- 16.
The ÖSVK had emerged from the Forschungsinstitut für Gemeinwirtschaft (Research Institute for Social Economy), an organization founded by Neurath and socialist Käthe Pick , dedicated to translating the principles of war economy into socialization debates. At the time, Pick was involved in establishment of a Betriebsräteschule or work council school and a member of the Austrian Committee for the Socialization of Industry. The Research Institute’s role was to support the committee and provide guidance and promotion in questions of communal economy (Hoffmann 1982, 142). The ÖSVK was from the beginning equally informed by debates about how to counteract the adverse economic circumstances through socialization as it was by socialist education discourse.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
The largest ÖSVK sponsored protest staged in April of 1921 elicited the participation of 50,000 settlers.
- 20.
- 21.
See Frank (1924), which was originally published in Der Neubau. I want to thank Christopher Long for sharing the text with me. In 2012 the text appeared in Tano Bojankin, Christopher Long, and Iris Meder’s edited volume and translation Josef Frank: Writings. I have used both, this volume’s as well as my own translations in some quotations above. Below I have indicated when my own translations have slightly deviated from official translations. For example, I translate the title of the essay “Die Wiener Siedlung,” as “The Viennese Settlement” while it appears as “The Viennese Housing Settlement,” in the translated volume. I have utilized this title, because it is clear from the context of this essay, that settlements are a distinct form of housing and the word “housing” did not appear in the original German title Cf. Bojankin et al. (2012, 211–222).
- 22.
The volume of inquiries and the intensity with which Kampffmeyer and Loos worked with individual settlers and cooperative representatives is reflected in the agenda ledgers of the municipal Settlement Office of the years 1921 and 1922, which have – if partially – survived in the Vienna City and County Archives.
- 23.
- 24.
Kampffmeyer offered instruction about garden cities and the settlement, Adolf Loos lectured on “the settlement as educator,” and Margarete Lihotzky on furniture and interior design. Josef Frank provided instruction in economic building techniques and a settler named Garder lectured on adobe construction.
- 25.
A number of articles in Arbeiterzeitung publicly announced ÖSVK experts’ activities and lectures throughout the years of 1922. See for example Anonymous (1922).
- 26.
Käthe Pick and Neurath frequently wrote for the journal Der Betriebsrat, founded to promote the cause of the work councils. They also frequently lectured in work council schools.
- 27.
I have used Eve Blau’s existing translation for this passage. For a careful analysis of the role of the Genossenschaftshäuser also see Blau (1999, 112).
- 28.
- 29.
A potential fourth aspect of visual display was the use of lantern slides, which accompanied lectures starting in 1923. They were, however, predominantly utilized at more prominent urban locations, such as the Urania and Universum cinemas, or the Austrian Chamber of Labor, which commissioned Neurath and Lihotzky to hold lectures for their women’s association in 1924.
- 30.
Josef Frank’s and Otto Neurath’s converging ideas on the type were first discussed by Eve Blau (2006, 256), which are part of the concluding remarks of this essay.
- 31.
See note 5. in this essay for Neurath’s use of “statements of facts.”
- 32.
These vegetable displays foreshadowed the idea of transformation, a process crucial for the creation of picture statistics, in which multiple of kind were translated into a single symbol.
- 33.
For Neurath’s ideas on physcialism see Uebel (2007) and Cartwright , Cat, Fleck , Uebel (1996). Also see O’Neill (2007); Neurath (1931c/1973), (1931b/1973), “Physicalism, Planning and the Social Sciences: Bricks Prepared for a Discussion V.Hayek,” July 26, 1945, Otto Neurath Papers, Haarlem, 202, K 56.
References
Altmann-Loos, Elsie. 2002. Adolf Loos, der Mensch. Vienna: Prachner.
Anonymous. 1921a, April 5. Der Massenaufmarsch der Siedler. Arbeiterzeitung: 5–6.
———. 1921b, November. Auskunft und Beratung. Der Siedler 1 (8): 117.
———. 1921c, August. Unwin in Österreich. Der Siedler 1 (5): 69–71.
———. 1921d, August. Hauptverband für Siedlungswesen. Der Siedler 1 (5): 70–71.
———. 1921e, November. Siedlungsschuleschule. Der Siedler 1 (8): 125.
———. 1921f, July. Nachrichten aus den Organisationen. Der Siedler 1 (4): 62.
———. 1922, August 26. Kleingärtner, Mieter, Siedler, Bauarbeiter. Arbeiterzeitung: 6.
———. 1923a, August 8. Kleingärtner, Mieter, Siedler, Bauarbeiter – Warentreuhand. Arbeiterzeitung: 6.
———. 1923b, October 5. Film- und Lichtbildervortag über Siedlungs- und Kernhausbaus. Arbeiterzeitung: 9.
———. 1924, April 13. Vereine und Versammlungen. Arbeiterzeitung: 10.
Banik-Schweitzer, Renate. 1972. Der staatlich geförderte, der kommunale und der gemeinnützige Wohnungs- und Siedlungsbau in Österreich bis 1945. Vienna: Ph.D. dissertation.
Blau, Eve. 1999. The Architecture of Red Vienna. Cambridge: MIT Press.
———. 2006. Isotype and Architecture in Red Vienna: The Modern Projects of Otto Neurath and Josef Frank. In Culture and Politics in Red Vienna, ed. Judith Beniston and Robert Vilain, 227–259. (= Austrian Studies, 14).
Bojankin, Tano et al., eds. 2012. Josef Frank: Writings (Vol. 1). Vienna: Metroverlag.
Botstein, Leon. 1996. The Consequence of Catastrophe: Josef Frank and Post-World-War-I Vienna. In Josef Frank, Architect and Designer: An Alternative Vision of the Modern Home, ed. Nina Stritzler-Levine, 30-43. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cartwright, Nancy, Jordi Cat, Lola Fleck, and Thomas Uebel. 1996. Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Das Deutsche Kriegswirtschaftsmuseum. 1918. Das Deutsche Kriegswirtschaftsministerium. (Leipzig: Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Wirtschaftsmuseums zu Leipzig, Heft 3).
Ermers, Max. 1923. Gruppe II und IV: Siedlungswesen und Wirtschaftseinrichtungen. In Führer durch die Wiener Kleingarten-, Siedlungs-, und Wohnbauausstellung, 2.-9. September 1923, Rathaus, ed. Max Ermers. Vienna: Self-Published.
———. 1924. Das Genossenschaftshaus der Wiener Rosenhügel-Siedlung und sein monumentaler Bilderschmuck. Vienna: Hermes Buch- u. Kunstdruck.
Feller, Barbara. 1996. 75 Jahre bauen für Wien: die Geschichte der GESIBA. Vienna: GESIBA – Gemeinnützige Siedlungs- und Bauaktiengesellschaft.
Frank, Josef. 1924. Die Wiener Siedlung. Der Neubau 6 (3): 25–29.
———. 1931a. Nach Kriegen. In Architektur Als Symbol: Elemente Deutschen Neuen Bauens, 1–6. Vienna: A. Scholl.
———. 1931b. Was ist modern? In Architektur als Symbol, 131–133. Wien: Löcker Verlag.
Freundlich, Emmy. 1921. Planwirtschaft, Kriegswirtschaft und Sozialismus. Der Betriebsrat 1 (15): 227–228.
Galison, Peter. 1990. Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural Modernism. Critical Inquiry 16 (4): 709–752.
Haney, David. 2010. When Modern Was Green: Life and Work of Landscape Architect Leberecht Migge. New York: Routledge.
Healy, Maureen. 2004. Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hochhäusl, Sophie. 2013. From Vienna to Frankfurt Inside Core House Type 7: A History of Scarcity Through the Modern Kitchen. Architectural Histories 1 (1): 1–19.
Hoffmann, Robert. 1982. Proletarisches Siedeln: Otto Neuraths Engagement für die Wiener Siedlerbewegung und den Gildensozialismus 1920 bis 1925. In Stadler (1982): 140–148.
Kampffmeyer, Hans. 1926. Siedlung und Kleingarten. Wien: Springer.
Kraeutler, Hadwig. 2010. Rondom Rembrandt and Beyond: On Otto Neurath’s Isotype Contributions to Visual Communication and Museum Learning. In Image and Imaging in Philosophy, Science and the Arts, ed. Richard Heinrich, Elisabeth Nemeth, Wolfram Pichler, and David Wagner, vol. 2, 137–173. Frankfurt: Ontos.
L. 1921. Bildung und Erziehung: Zweite Betriebsräteschule in der Tschechoslowakei. Der Betriebsrat 1 (12): 192.
Law, Alex. 2015. Social Theory for Today: Making Sense of Social Worlds. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Leichter, Käthe. 1997. Käthe Leichter: Leben, Werk Und Sterben Einer österreichischen Sozialdemokratin. Wien: Ibera & Molden.
Lihotzky, Margarete. 1923. Neues Wohnen. Der Kampf gegen den Möbelschund. Arbeiterzeitung 9.
Long, Christopher. 1996. The Wayward Heir: Josef Frank’s Vienna Years, 1885–1933. In Josef Frank, Architect and Designer: An Alternative Vision of the Modern Home, ed. Nina Stritzler-Levine, 44-61. New Haven: Yale University Press.
———. 2002. Josef Frank: Life and Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Loos, Adolf. 1921. Der Tag der Siedler. Neue Freie Presse: 10–11.
McElvenny, James. 2013. International Language and the Everyday: Contact and Collaboration Between C.K. Ogden, Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (6): 1194–1218.
Meder, Iris, et al. 2008. Josef Frank 1885–1967: Eine Moderne der Unordnung. Salzburg: Anton Pustet.
Michael, Gottlieb. 1923. Über Zweckmäßigkeit und Schönheit der Ausstellung. Kleingärtner und Siedler 1 (7): 2.
Müller, Adolf. 1921. Die Siedlerbewegung. Der Betriebsrat 17: 261–263.
Nemeth, Elisabeth. 1982/1991. Otto Neurath’s Utopias – The Will to Hope. In Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle: Austrian Studies on Otto Neurath and the Vienna Circle, ed. Thomas Uebel, 285–292. Drodrecht: Kluwer.
Neurath, Otto. 1916. Naturaltausch und Ernährungsproblem. Der Volkswirt 1: 425–426.
———. 1917a/1973. The Converse Taylor System. In Empiricism and Sociology, ed. Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen, 130–135. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
———. 1917b/2004. The Economic Order of the Future and the Economic Sciences. In Otto Neurath: Economic Writings. Selections 1904–1945, ed. Thomas Uebel and Robert S. Cohen, 241–261. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 1918/1998. Die Kriegswirtschaftslehre und ihre Bedeutung für die Zukunft. In Otto Neurath: Gesammelte Ökonomische, Soziologische, und Sozialpolitische Schriften, Band II, ed. Rudolf Haller and Ulf Höfer. Wien: Hölder, Pichler, Tempsky.
———. 1919. Durch Die Kriegswirtschaft Zur Naturalwirtschaft. Munich: G. D. W. Callwey.
———. 1921a. Die Österreichische Siedlerbewegung. Neue Freie Presse (Evening Edition) April 19, 1921: 3.
———. 1921b. Erziehungsaufgaben des Sozialismus. Bildungsarbeit 8 (2/3): 9.
———. 1923a. Österreichisches Kleingärtner und Siedler Organisation. Wien: Kommissionsverlag der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung.
———. 1923b. Die Vorbereitung der Kleingarten- Siedlungs- und Wohnbauaustellung. Österreichische Städtezeitung 9, September 1923: 131–135.
———. 1923c. Kernhausaktion der Gemeinde Wien. Österreichische Städte Zeitung 7, July 1923: 1–8.
———. 1923d. Dauernde Erhaltung des Ausstellungsmaterials, Ein Siedlungsmuseum. Arbeiterzeitung, September 6 (1923): 8.
———. 1925. Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien. Österreichische Gemeindezeitung: 1–12.
———. 1927. Der Weg des Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseums. Österreichische Gemeindezeitung 4: 2–4.
———. 1929. Bildstatistik und Arbeiterbildung. Bildungsarbeit 1: 8.
———. 1930. Das Sachbild. Die Form 2: 219–225.
———. 1931a. Bildhafte Pädagogik im Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien. Museumskunde, Neue Folge III: 125–129.
———. 1931b/1973. Physicalism. The Philosophy of the Viennese Circle. In Empiricism and Sociology, ed. Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen, 48–51. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
———. 1931c/1973. Sociology in the Framework of Physicalism. In Empiricism and Sociology, ed. Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen, 58–90. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
———. 1933a. Die pädagogische Weltbedeutung der Bildstatistik nach Wiener Methode. Die Quelle 3: 209–212.
———. 1933b. Museums of the Future. Survey Graphic 22 (9): 458–463.
———. 1936. International Picture Language – The First Rules of Isotype. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
Novy, Klaus. 1981. Die Pioniere vom Rosenhügel: Zur wirklichen Revolution des Arbeiterwohnens. UmBau 4: 43–60.
Novy, Klaus, Wolfgang Förster, and Verein für Moderne Kommunalpolitik. 1991. Einfach Bauen: Genossenschaftliche Selbsthilfe nach der Jahrhundertwende: Zur Rekonstruktion der Wiener Siedlerbewegung. Vienna: Picus.
O’Neill, John F. 2007. Pluralism and economic institutions. In Otto Neurath’s Economics in Context, ed. Elisabeth Nemeth, Stefan Schmitz, and Thomas Uebel, 77–100. Dordrecht: Springer.
Reumann, Jakob. 1923. Geleitwort. In Führer durch die Wiener Kleingarten-, Siedlungs-, und Wohnbauausstellung, 2.-9. September 1923, Rathaus, ed. Max Ermers, vol. 3. Wien: Self-Published.
Rukschcio, Burkhardt, and Roland Schachel. 1982. Adolf Loos: Leben Und Werk. Wien: Residenz Verlag.
Sandner, Günther. 2014. Otto Neurath: Eine politische Biographie. Wien: Zsolnay.
Schütte-Lihotzky, Margarete. 1923b. Wiener Kleingarten- und Siedlerhüttenaktion. Schlesisches Heim 3 (4): 23–85.
———. 2004. Warum ich Architektin wurde. Salzburg: Residenz.
Sekera, Franz. 1921, September. Invalide als Siedler. Der Siedler 1(6): 92.
Stadler, Friedrich, ed. 1982. Arbeiterbildung in der Zwischenkriegszeit. Otto Neurath und Gerd Arntz. Wien: Löcker.
Turner, Fred. 2013. The Democratic Surround: Multimedia & American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties. London: University of Chicago Press.
Uebel, Thomas. 2004. Neurath’s Economy in Critical Context. In Otto Neurath: Economic Writings. Selections 1904–1945, ed. Thomas Uebel and Robert S. Cohen, 1–108. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 2007. Empiricism at the Crossroads: The Vienna Circle’s Protocol-Sentence Debate. Chicago: Open Court.
Vossoughian, Nader. 2007. The War Economy and the War Museum: Otto Neurath and the Museum of War Economy in Leipzig, c. 1918. In Otto Neurath’s Economics in Context, ed. Elisabeth Nemeth, Stefan Schmitz, and Thomas Uebel, 131–140. Dordrecht: Springer.
———. 2008. Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis. Rotterdam: Nai Publishers.
Welzig, Maria. 1998. Josef Frank (1885–1967): Das Architektonische Werk. Wien: Böhlau.
Wilson, Francesca. 1923. The resurrection of Vienna, houses on the land settlement. The Manchester guardian, October 26: 6.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hochhäusl, S. (2019). Traveling Exhibitions in the Field: Settlements, War-Economy, and the Collaborative Practice of Seeing, 1919–1925. In: Cat, J., Tuboly, A. (eds) Neurath Reconsidered. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 336. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02128-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02128-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02127-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02128-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)