Isotype and Architecture in Red Vienna:

The Modern Projects of

Otto Neurath and Josef Frank
EVE BLAU
Itmward Ur•iver•ity

I
Iu Septcmber 1.()2. t Otlo Ncurath economist, founding mcmbcr of
the Vienna Circle, Socialist, and then secreta W of the Forschungsinstitut
f{ir GemeinwirtschN't [Research Institute fbr Socialization] in Vienna
wrote excitedly to his friend, the German art historian and
photographer, Franz Roh, about the beginning of large-scale nnmicipal
building operations in Red Vienna: 'Wit sind hier stark Aktivistisch
gestimmt, weil die Arbeiterregierung unserer Stadt sehr viel haul und
schm/ickl• Unsere Organisation hat grosse Plfine. [...] wit [sind] yon
der •Jberzeugung eriiillt, [...] dass die I,•rwirklichmzg der kolnmenden
Kunst dem organisierten Proletariat zukommen werde' [We are in an
activist frame oT mind here because the worker administration in our
city is building and beauti•dng so •nuch• Our organization has great
plans. We arc conviuced that the realization of the new art will iidl to the
organized proletariat].• Neuralh had.just embarked on a new prqject
related to the Social Democrats' building program•ne: the development
of a Gesellschaf•-und •irkschaft•smuseuni [GX•,•, Social and Economic
Museum] in Vienna. In the same letter Neurath asked Rob to seud
intbrmation on contemporary graphic techniques that could help with
prcsenling intbr•nation about worker housing and the xnany other social
and cultural institutions •hat were part of Red Vienna's radical prqject to
reshape the capital of the new republic along Socialist liues. •
Principal among the lasks of the Social and Economic Museum in
Vienna enuinerated by Neurath in 'Aui•aben des Gesellschaf•s- und
Wirtschaflsmuscun•s in Wien' in Der A•au in •92•5 was to make clear
complex relations in sociely and economics, in biolo•,, the engineering
Otto Neurath to Franz Roh, letter [• 9•4], Franz Rob Papers, c. tg• t-•965, Research
LibraD', The Gelty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (85o• •o); he•-eafter cited
as Rob Papers, GRI.
Ibid..
 2 2 8 Isotype and Architecture in Red Vienna
sciences and a number of other fields, and to present abstract ideas
and quantifiable information about a diverse range of subjecks fi'om
industrial production to mortali• unemployment, commodi• exchange,
the significance of sport, education, housing and so on in a clear,
universally comprehensible fashion. This required new techniques of
communication. 3
Between 1925 and •934 Neurath and a team of graphic designers,
tN)ographers and scientific experts at the G• tbcused on developing
an international picture language, which he described as a system of
opti)al representation for presenting social-scientific thcu to a culturally
diverse, working-class population with little or no tbrmal education; a
system known at lirst as the 'Wiener Metbode' [Vienna Method] and
later by the acronym 'ISO•E' (International System Of •pographic
Picture Education).'t 2• Neurath explained retrospectively in an article
in Su•ey Gr@hic in 1 933, the Vienna method of visual education arose
'out of the actual needs of the learners'. The Socialist municipally, had
'built 60,000 tenements [...], hundreds of kindergartens, playgrounds,
health CClllrcs and many other things. But how, it may bc asked, is il
possible in any city with a democratic government to achieve so much of
benefit to the masses unless the people understand what it is all about,
at least in ils larger outline, and unless these enormous expenditures out
of tax revenues are approved on the basis of a constant account to the
people? Hence, general social education became a necessiD, ff)r this ciD,.
I1. is out of this need that the Social and Economic Musemn of Vienna
was born' (see Figures •, 2). 5
The International Picture I•anguage devised by Neuratla at the GWM
(and which he developed fin-tber at the International Foundation for
the Promotion of Visual Education in The Hague at).er his emigration
to ltolland in 1934) was part of a comt)rehensivc eitbIt to give yisible,
tangible and easily comprehensible form to a•_•ractsocial and political
i•eas. Elsewhere I have drm, n• a connection be•een the techniques o•"
representation developed at the Gh•i to •i•seminate in!bnnafionabout
t• buildings of
Red Vienna themselves. Both projects, lhe 'Vienna
Method' of visual commiinication and the architecture of Red Vienna,
I argued, were inIBrmcd by a similar set of ideas regarding language,
• Otto Neurath, 'Aufgaben des Gesellschat•s- und Wirtschaftsmuseums in Wien', Der
Aufbau, 8/9 (•9z6), •69-73.
40•to Nem-ath, lnt•natio•ml Picture Langmag• /h•to•ationale Bilder•prache, trans, by
Marie Neurath (Reading, 98o; reprint of London, 936) p. 18. For Nenrath's
facsimile
publications on picture education, see Arbeiterbildun• in dm Zwischenkrieg:•'zeit, Otto Nemath
Ge•ff A•tz, ed. by Friedrich Stadler (Vienna, •98•), pp. z39-•5-
5 Otto Neurath, "Museums of the Future', Survo Graphic. 22/ix (•933), 458-63
Figure (top). Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum [GWM] iustallation in
Volkshalle, Neues Rathaus, Vienna, 9•6. (Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype
c.
Collection @ The University of Reading.)
(bottoln) Display Techniques employed at the GWM, Vienna.
From Otto Neurath, International Picture Language (a936), picture :a 4.

Figure z (over page). Gemei'ndebauten built in 'Red Vienna', •9z3-34

Bottoin centre: Karl-Marx-Hof by Karl Ehu, •927-3 o. Photograph c. •93 o.
(Wiener Smdl- und Landesarcbiv, Vienna).
 EVE BLAU 231
comInunication and the didactic potential c•f optical rep•esentation for
communicating social and political ideas t; c.• • •,.• •.=.
• •4
But there is another connection bem'een architecture and ISO•I•E •n
Red Vienna, both more direct and more far-reaching in its implications,
that was nol examined in any depth in Tt•e Architecture of•d Vienna and
has rmnained largely unexamined in the history of inte:•war modern
architecture. That is the connection in terms of philosophical and
political convictions betx•een the con temporary modernizing projects
of Otto Neurath andJosefFrank, be•veen Neurath[•
•icture Language and Frank's critic(•Tarc•• practice, which is the
central concern of this •gg/••i•it h•terconnection sheds light not only
on the projects themselves but also more broadly on the ideolo• of the
Modern Movement and the institutional structures •th which Neurath
and Frank were associated: the Dessau Bautlaus, the Deutscher Werkbund,
and the Congr•:s
lnternationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CLAM);
and through which the Movement itself operated in the 192os and
early 193os.
The circumstances of the interaction between Ncurath and Frank arc
relatively well documenled. 7 It seems likely that they met in the context of
the logical positivist movement in Vienna. Philipp Frank, the architect's
brothec was a theoretical physicist (who succeeded eMbert Einstein at the
German University of Prague in 9 2) and a founding member; along
with Neurath and Hans ltahn, of the Verein Ernst Mach [Ernst Mach

the •ielilla oft•

Socict•] and logical positivist, movement in Vienna• later renamed
Circle3Nmlrath ali• Ptiilipp
Frank had Studied mathematics
togettier at-Vienna University before Neuratb's interesm shifted to
economics and ancient histo• T. On the advice of Ferdinand T6nnies, he
continued his studies •th Eduard Meyer at Berlin, where he received
his doctorate in economics in 9o6. Until the outbreak of World War
Neurath laught economics at the Neue Wiener Iandelsakademie [New
Vienna Academy of Commerce]. He spent much of the war studying
problems of K•eg•wirtschafi [war economics] at the Minisn T of War in
Vienna and at the German Museum of War Economics in I•eipzig. In
9 t 9 he served in the short, lived Bavarian revolutionaw government. 8
a Eve The Architecture q/'l•d Vienna, r9rg-r934 (Cambridge, MA and London,
Blau,
1999), 387-4 •.
PP. °
Ibid., passim; Christopher Long,.fi•s•[•>ank. I.{[e a•d I'Ibrk (Chicago, IL and London,
•oo•); En•Tcl@edia a•d Ut@ia. The Li/k an.d 145)rk o] Otto Neuratt• (•88•-•945) ed. by
Elisabeth Nemeth and Friedrich Stadler (Dordrecht. Boston, N•X and London, 996).
s For biographical details
of Neurath's life and education, see Encyclopedia and Ul@ia,
ed. by Nemeth and StadIer, pp. •5-2£; Otto Neurath, Empiricism and Sociol%•', ed. by
Marie Neurath and Robert S. Cohen (Dordrecht and Boston, N'E•X. •973), P. •8o; Nancv
Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Lola Fleck and Thomas E. Uebel. Ollo •N•uralh. Philos@h)' betwee•
Science a•d Politics (Cambridge, 996), pp. -8•.
 232 Isotype and Amhitecture in Red Vie•ma

Josef Frank had trained at lhe "I•chnical University in Vienna and

snbsequently spent a year in Berlin, working in the office of the
successfi.fl Berlin architect, Bruno M6hfing..M•er an extended stay in
Ital); he returned to Vienna to complete his doctorate in g• o (on the
architecture of (he Renaissance pol•nath Leon Batfis•a ,•berti). •ter
serving in World X,•r I as a rese•,c lieutenant in a railway and bridge
engineering regiment, Frank returned to Vienna, were he practised and
taught at the Kuns{gewerbeschule [School of Applied eM'•] t}om 9 9 to
9z5, when he founded an interior design titan, Haus & Garten [Home
& Garden], x•fith the architect Oskar Wlach. •
Frank participated in some of the meetings of •he Vienna Circle bo•h
before and after World War I. IIc also collaborated wi•h Ncurath on
various prqjects related to the social and cultural programmes of Red
Vienna. Principal among them was the design and organization of the
Gesellschafls- und Wir•chaf•smuseum. Beibre that both Neurath and
Frank had been involved in different aspects of the Osterreichischer
Verband flit Siedhmgs- und •eingartenwesen [OVSK, Austrian
Selllcmcnt and Allolmcnl Gardcn Union]. Like Ncurath, Frank was a
Socialist and a strong supporter of lhe cooperative Gartensiedlur•g move-
ment in Vienna in the early 192os. •qaen Neurath was secrem W general
of the OVSK, Frank lectured and taught courses on a variety of subjects
related to settlement housing design and theow, helped to organize the
Siedhmgsmuseum [Settlement Museum] and vohmteered regularly in
the Baub•.ro advicc centre; he also designed a housing estate lbr one of
the cooperative settlement societies. Three years latin; Frank was inw)lved
(along with four other architect: Adolf l,oos, Josef HoftE•ann, Peter
Behrens and Oskar Strnad) in another project spearheaded by Neurath:
the development of a 'Generalarchitektnrplan' [general architectural
plan] tbr Vienna, a short-lived prqject that was at)andoned when the
cily's large-scale huilding operations began in early 9•4
Neurath described the roles that he and Frank played in the context
of the (•VSK and the ambition of their combined project in a letter
to Franz Rob in •9z4: 'Der eine Sozialist Professor Frank bem/iht
sich, seinen Stil den jiingeren Leuten, den Siedlern, der Gemeinde
zugiinglich zu machen, wfihrend andere die Organisation schaffen,
wclche prolctarisches Baucn crm6glicht ]dazu zfihlc ich]. Wirkschafts-
gvundlagen schaft>n, politische Macht vorbereiten, bauen, malen,
Kunstkritik treiben das ist ve*einbar [The one Socialist, Professor
Frank, tries to make his sl),le comprehensible to the young people, the
•nunicipal settlers, while others (among whom I count myselt) create
9 See I,•mg, Josq/Frank.
Blau, Red Vienna, p. 6o.
 EVE BI•AU 233
the organization that makes proletarian bttilding possible; bnilding,
painting, art cnnc•sm •t •s allreco•czlable]. In general, Neurath had
enorInous confidence in the efficacy of architecture as an instrunmnt
of social transfi)nnation, lie saw the architect, 'more than any other
creative person', as both burdened with anticipating the fimxre and
uniquely equipped to give shape to the modern 'Lebensform' through
technical innovation in design. In Nenrath's •ew, architecture and mass
housing could perform important political as well as material fimctions;
the design and construction of new forms of collective dwelling spaces
that not only prmqded shelter but also *bstered new forms of socialized
urban living could be an important f•ctor in the gradual socialization of
the economy as a whole. •2 Frank and Neurath were deeply commilted to
the settlement housing movement in Vienna, believing that the working-
class Gartensiedlung consisting of small rows of houses •vqth long narrow
productive gardens was socially, politically and econolnically the most
appropriate urban housing g, polog 7 for Red Vienna.
The Ga,'t•.siedlungen Frank and Neurath helped to produce in Vienna
wcrc radically indcpcndcnt of bourgeois slructurcs and pre-war
gardcn
city models; they were cooperatively owned and run, anti-picturesque
in design, re'ban and at the same time inextricably bonnd to the
cul[•vat]on of tbod. •3 Collective ownership and collective identity were
key components of the Gartensiedlm•g concept. In Neurath's words,
'Die Gleichartigkeit der Wohnungen ('l•])en), die Gleichartigkeit der
Baubestandtcilc (Nor•nen) ist Ausfluss der Sparsamkeit, abet auch
Ausfluss des Sinnes ffir Gleichheit. [...] Eine neue Gemeinschaft
entsteht hier aus der Klassensolidat•tkt der Arbeitermassen herans' [the
unifonnig, of the dwellings (•pes), the uniformity of the standardized
building componen• (norms) follows i}oln economic necessig, but also
fl'oIn a sense of equality. A new community is evolving here out of the
class solidarily of Ihc working population].•4
Consequently, Nenrath and Frank were discouraged by and sharply
critical of the city's decision in • 9z3/•9•4 (once the post.war economic
crisis was over and the city had the flmds to build on a large scale
in Vienna) to abandon the Gartensiedlung as the new housing tbrm
lbr the Socialist mnnicipalig' in i•vour of Gemein&bauten (the 4oo

Neurath to Roll letter [•9 June •9•4], Rob Papers, GRI (emphasis in the
original).
Neurath, Empi.dcism a,•d .%ciologg', p. 257.
See fiwther Robert Hoffmann. 'Proletarisches Siedeln Otto Neuraths Engagement
t•i• die Wiener Siedhmgsbewegung nnd den Gildensozialismus yon •92o bis •9•5 ',
and Wolt•gang H6sl and Gottfiied Pirhofer, 'Otto Neurath und der Stgdtebau', in
Arbeiterbildu•g, ed. by Stadler, pp. •4o-48. 57-6•.
•4 OIIo Nemath, Ostoreichs Kleingarten- u*•d Siedlowgrt•isatio•ten (Vienna, •9u3), p. 34.
 234 [•otype and Architecture in Red Vienna
communal buildings erected throughout Vienna in which workers'
housing was incorporated •dth uew social and cultural institutions).
.•thongh unwavering in their support t•r the Social Democrats' social
and cultural programmes in Vienna, they saw the new buildings (see
Figure z) as deficient fiom a •ological and technological point of
view. Frank especially rese•ed some of his most acerbic criticism t•r the
molmmentality and 'rhetoric' of the Viennese Gemeindebaute•, especially
those designed by architects of the Waguer School (studeuts in Otto
Wagner's Spezialschule ffir Architektm" at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Vienna, including •rl Ehn who designed the •rl-Marx-Hof), who
received most of the large and iinportant commissions and played a key
role in shaping the architectural programme of Red Vienna.•5
In particular, Frank and Neurath found fault with the Social
Democrat' building programme tbr (as they saw it) lacing the unified
planning concept, advanced structural techniques and innovative
spatial organization that distinguished the Siedlungen built under the
banner of Das neue Bauen [the new architecture] in Germany during
the same years. The German housing was lhc producl of extensive
t•)ological and technical research illto standardization of spatial ul•its
and structural elements, and rationalization of the building industw,
including experiments in preti•brication carried out at Fran•iu't, •thin
lhe Reichsforschungsgesellschaft ffir Wirtschaftlichkeit im Bau- trod
Wohnungswesen [Rt•g, The German Housing Research Institute] and the
Dessau Bauhaus. 6
Neurath was drawn to the technical, socially driven agenda of the ,neues
Baue•and especially o the Dessau Bauhaus, whose director; Walter Gropius,
was determined to make the school a centre for research into the industrial
production of housing. A{ the opening in •9z6, Gropius declared that
'the Bauhaus workshops are essentially laboratories in which protoVpes
suitable for mass production and typical of their time are developed with
care and constantly improved'.
7 The Bauhaus's commitment to principles

•5.josef Frank, 'Volkswohnungspalast. Eine Rede. anlfisslich der Grundsteinlegung, die

nicht gehalten wurde', Der At.(fl)au, 7 9z6), •°7-1 •.
• On Weimar housing, •l•tmi, 'Sozialpolitik and the City in Weimar
see Manfredo
Germany', in his 7•te Sphere and the Lalori*•th. Avanl-Gardes a•d ArchiteclureJi-om Pitaaesi to
the r97os, trans, by t ellegrino d'Acierno and Robert Connollv (Cambridge, N'•, •987)
pp. 97-263.
•7 Walter Gropius, 'Dessau Bauhaus principles of Bauhaus production', flyer
published by Bauhaus, March 9•6; cited in Frank Whiltbrd, Bauhaus (l,ondon, •984),
p. 2o6. Neurath understood the prima• T purpose of the Bauhaus to be the production
of housing, t:hrniture, fittings and type-models that could be used by industry and the
trades as protoD'pes t•r mass production; Otto Neurath, 'D• Neue Bauhaus in Dessau',
 EVE BLAU 235
of 'fimclional' design and cmnnfic technically grounded processes in
line with modern, mechanized methods of production was reinforced
when Hannes Meyer became director in •927 and sought to align the
school with his own colnmiunent to technocratic Marxism, rationalism
and internationalism. During Meyer's tenure as director be•een 19z 7
and •93 o, Neurath and Frank (as well as other •nembers of the Vienna
Circle including Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank and Herbert Feigl) were
invited to lecture in Dessau. Frank and Neurath also forged connections
with other institutions of the modernist avant-garde in Germany during
these years.•S
In 1927, Frank, whose architectural work had been recently
published and positively reviewed in leading German architectural
journals, was invited to participate in the Deutscher Werkbund's
Weissenhogsiedlung Exhibition in Stuttgart. Organized by Lud•g Mies
van der Rohe, •2fissenhofwas a huilding exhibition intended to showcase
the new architecture and demonstrate i•s international reach by including
architects tYoln, in particulm; Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and
Belgium; Frank was the only Austrian inxqted to participate. The tbllowing
ycar Frank was a founding member of CLAM, a new intcrnational
organizalion of architects concerned with lhe city and with promoling
and realizing the social potential of inodern architecture; Neurath
became the only non-architect member of the Congress in 933. 9
Both Frank and Neurath soon fell out with these organizations. At
Weissenhof, Frank ran into direct conflict with the leadership of the
organizing.institution and olhev exhibitors. The contenlion, ostensibly
over design, inyolved a fimdamental disagreement over the interpretation
of Sachlichkeit ['objecti•fity], one of the tbundational concepts of German
modernism. Similar issues led Frank to resign from CIAM after the
organization's second meeting in t92 9. Neurath's own brief association
with CI:%'I in 1933 ended acrimoniously after one unsuccessfifl attempt
at collaborating on the development of graphic techniques for visualizing
the 'Functional Cig,'. •" Frank and Neurath also becatne disillusioned with

•8 See Peter Galison, 'Aufl)au / Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural

Modernism', Chtical Inqub)'. •6/iv (Summer 199o ), 7o9-52 (pp. 7 •, 7•o). For a
wide-ranging discussion of connections bevween logical positivism and architecture in
the intet•war period, see Peter Galison, 'The Cultural Meaning of A,qbau'. in Scie•ttific
Ph.ih•.•ophy. Origins a•d D•,elop•nent.s, ed. by Friedrich Stadler, Vienna Circle Institute
Yearbook (Dovdrecht, •993), PP. 75-94 (PP. 83-87).
•9 See l•chard Pom•ner and Christian E Otto, 14•,iss•hof•g27 a•M theModer• Moveme,•t
i*• A*vhitectu•e (Chicago, I1. and l.oudon, 99 ), and Iamg, Jose/Frank, pp. o3-18,
See Andreas Faludi, 'Otto Neurath and Planning TheoD:', and Enrico Chapel, •Otto
Neurath and the CLaM The Interrmtio•tal Picture I.ar•.ffu.age as a Notational System t•v
Town Planning', in Enuclopedia a•d Utopia, ed. by Nemeth and Stadlev, pp. zo t-t 3 and
67-8o.
236 Isotype and Architectu• in Red Vie•na
the Bauhaus, especially after Hannes Meyer was forced
to resign in 93 °
by reactiona W elements both inside and outside the school. They co-
authored a trenchant defence of Meyer's directorship (published in Der
Klassenkam]( [Class Stru&¢le] ), in which they cited his 'wissenschaftliche
Weltauf•assung' [scientific conception of the world] and coininitment to
the new 'Lebensordmmg' [form of life] of Socialism as evidence of the
progressive political and scientific direction in which he was attempting
to take the school. 2• Frank wrote privately to Meyer about the direction
he feared the school would follow •thout the progressive social politics
Meyer had infi•sed into the curriciflum:
Was das Banhans betrifft, so glaube ich, (lass es nun zu einer uormalen, mehr
oder weniger modern einge•chteten Kunstgewerbescbule werden wird, die
abet kaum mehr einen eM•ziehungspunkt bedenten ,•rd [...]. Es ist dies abet
eiu Ende, das ich scbou bei seiner Begrfindung geahnt habe, denn ein BAUhaus
vertriigt [...] diese iibrigen Lehrt•icher nicht und muss sich notwendigerweise
[...] anf anderes konzentrieren .22
[Regarding the Bauhaus, I believe it will revert lo being a normal, more or less
modern applied art school without any particular attraction. This is, howevm;
an outcome that half expected when it was fouuded, siuce a BAUhaus cannot
support these other tields of study and must necessarily lbcus on diiI>rcnt
matters.]
Even bei•re this Neurath had expressed reservations about the Bauhaus.
Regarding Gropius, who lectured in Vienna in tg• 4, he had written
to Roh, 'or brachtc uns meist bekanntes. Er selbst ist sicher kcine
bedeutende Architektenpers6nlichkeit' [what he gave us was lbr the most
part tRmiliar stufE te himself is as an architect certainly not a significant
figure]. But (as Neurath also noted in the letter) it was nevertheless
scandalous lhat attempts were being made to close the Bauhaus on
political grounds. 2• hi another context he described the architecture
associated with the 'Weimarer Bauhaus' as R)rmalist 'Wfirfelromantik'
[romantic cubisln] .24
The significance of Frank's and Neurath's conflic• and disagreemen•
with the Bauhaus, the Deutscher Werkbund and CIAM and the
profound ideological differences to which they point have received
little scrutiny by historians of architecture and science who have
conccrncd themselves with interactions between modern archilccturc,
Josef Frank and Otto Neurath, 'ltannes Meyer', Der Kla.s'senka•n]q/i Sozialistische Polilik
u•d Wirtschaft, 3 (193 °), 574-75.
•.]osef
Frank to Hannes Meym; letter [7 October •93o], Bauhaus Correspondence,
•9'z3-33, Research Librat T, The Getty' Research Institute, I.os ,•geles, California
(87o57o).
'-'3 Neurath to Rob, letter, [•924], Rob Papers, GIG.
'-"• Ibid..
 EVE BEAU 237
the philosophy of science, and social and design theory during the inter-
war decades. In institutional histories of the •nodern movement Josef
Frank tends to be relegated to the margins and his opposition to the
functionalist tenets of the neues Bauen tends to be portrayed as a minority
(and conservative) position lacking its own 'coherent architectural
theow', z5 In fact, Frank's theoretical work has received little serious
critical attention, few of his texts have been translated or made available
to a wide architectural audience, and Frank himself only very recently
received monographic treatment in Christopher Long's comprehensive
L•k and Wo•. • Neurath is also a marginal figure ill historical narratives
of the Modern Movement; his involvement with CI• has been primarily
of interest to planning theorists who have explored the implications of
ISO•E for modernist planning thonght and pracnce.
The most •r-reaching study of points of contact and exchange
between Neurath, Frank and the institutions of modern architecture
has been in the context of Peter Galison's groundbreaking examination
of interconnections political, philosophical, sociological and techno-
logical bclwccn lhc logical positivist, movement in Vienna and the
Modern Movement in Germany. In 'Aufl3au / Bauhaus: Logical
Positivism and Architectural Modernism', Galison emph;•izes that the
.two endeavours were not just parallel prqjects but were reciprocally
![cinfQ•yf•ng t)rogralnnms. They were 'bound by shared political, scientific,
and programmatic concerns', and connected by a 'common vision of what
both called a modern "form of lilE"' and 'real links' be•.vcen architects
at the Bauhaus and intellectuals in the Vienna Circle who sell:consciously
reintbrced each other and were under attack by the same forces of
reaction that would eventnally close the Bauhaus itself in • 933-
Galison has drawn attention to parallels in the logical positi•s•s' eftbru
'to ground a "scientific", anti-philosophical philosophy that would set all
reliable knowledge on slrong [empirical] foundations' and the cfforls of
the Bauhaus to 'create a new anti-aesthetic aesthetic' based on o•jectivig,
and facmality. Both enterprises 'sought to instantiate a modernism
emphasising "transparent construction", a manifest building up flom
simple elements to all higher tbrms that would [...] guarantee the
pommer and Otto, I,VeisaenhoJ; p. 234, note 90. See also Eric Mumford, The CI•UI.I
Discom•'e on Lrrba*•ism, r9•8-z96o (Cambridge, •k and London. 2ooo).
(,885-,967).
See Long, .fl•¢f Fra,•k. Also notable are Maria Welzig, .fi•sefFra,•k Das
a•.:/•it&to•,i.sche B.krk (Vienna, •998), WilDied Wang, 'Orthodoxy and hnmanent Criticism:
On Josef Frank's Contribution to the Stuttgart •issenhofsiedlung, •9•6-•9
Moder•.ism a,•d Hi.slo•y, ed. by Alexander yon tIoffinan (Ca,nbridge, NL4 and London,
•996), pp. 63-7o and the earlier exhibition catalogue, JosCFran•, •885-•967, ed. by
Johannes Spah and lcrmann Czech (Vienna, •98•).
See note •3.
 238 Isotype and Architectm• in Red Vie•na
exclusion of the decorative, mystical, or metaphysical'. Each discipline,
Galison argues, 'used the other to legitimate its then radical enaeavor .-
Galison attributes central roles to Neurath and Frank in this efibrt,
forging alliances intellectual and political hetween the Vienna
Circle and the Bauhaus, bem'een logical positivism and avant-garde
architecture. Galison places Frank 'at the center of the new architecture'
and 'not Par from the vortex of the new scientific philosophy', and
credits Neurath with aligning the Vienna Circle's logical positivism with
•ae Modern Movement's ideolo D, of Neue Sachlichkeit •9 Ilere, however,
-(;alison misreads the terms of the Sachlichkeit discourse. He seelns to
miss the subtle, hut all-important, distinction Neurath draws belsveen
the Alle Sachlichkeit {which Neurath associates with Frank's designs
the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmusemn [see Figure ], and the Neue
Sachlichkeit of the Bauhaus and the new German architecture, and thils
to recognize the flind•menml differences helween •.•a•k's.•p!!cep.tig•
of rationalism, objectiviD, and•achlichkeit and that of the central
protagonists of the ,•eues Bauen. •°
Those ditt•rcnces arc key to understanding the modernist prqjccks
of Neurath and Frank and their relation 1o the mainstream Modern
Movement. If we examine them more closely, it •11 become clear that
the Viennese not only disagreed fimdamentally with the Bauhaus and
neues Bauen on the issue of Sachlichkeit, but that their opposition to this
cornerstone of Modern Movement doctrine constituted ho/h a well-
developed critique of German •nodernis•n, and a conception of the
modernist architectural prqject thai politically and architecturally
was radically at odds with those of the Bauhaus, the •eues Bauen,
Deutscher Werklmnd and ClAM in the late 192os and early 93os.

z8 Galison, 'Aulbau / Bauhaus', pp. 71 •, 7•o, 7t2.

• Ibid., pp. 7')3-•4.
•" In 9•4 Neurath described the layout and architecture designed by Frank •br the
GWM: 'Ira fibrigen strotzt das Museuna yon alter Sachlichkeit. Ganz rechtwinkelig.
Alle Tafeln kommel•surable Gr6ssen, und alle zusammengesetzt und mit Rahmen
umschlossen. Wie ein riesiges Buch, jede Wand eme Seite...'. Neurath to Rob, letter,
[19z4], Roh Papers, GRI. Galison cites this letter and interprets Neurath's re[Erence to
lhc "alto Sachlichkcil' as one of many rclk'rcnccs by Ncmath 'to the artistic movement
of the Neue Sachlichkeit or 'new o[•jectivity', a coldly clinical realist style [...]', Galison,
'Att•au / Bauhaus', pp. 7•3-2t.
 EVE BLAU 239

II
In German art and arcbitectm-al discom'ses, the terln Sachlichkeit bad a-•
difI•rent meaning in the pre-war period fi'om that which it acquired•
the 9•os. In the early 9oos, as Stanfbrd •M•derson has shown, Sachlichk•i•
designaled a concern for 'realism' in architectu•e, a 'straighttbrw•}'d
attention to needs as well as f• ns{•ei:ia!S and processes', that was 'rooted
-in problems of fimction, commodity, health and production bnt. not
bounded by a narrow flmclionalism'. Instead, Sachlichheit contained
within it 'an impetus to understand and to use ore" received condition
as much as to criticize and change it'. a• In the Viennese context this
position was most cogently tbrmulated by Otto Wagner and Adolf I,oos
in the decades around • 9oo. Wagner, in his apodiclic •nanual of practice,
Modeme Architektur [Moderr• Architecture, •896], stated that it was the
architect's task to elevate the ti•cls of modern life, 'the conditions of litk
of our time', to art to give shape to time itself by creatively interpreting
the purpose, necessity, means and characteristics of the historical
moment. '3• For Loos Sachlichkeilalso had broad cultural implications. 'The
prilnaD, problein should be to express the three-dimensional character
of architecture clearly, in such a way that the inhabitants of a building
should be able to live the cultural life of/heir generation'. •
In the • 9zos the term Neue Sachlichheit was used to designate changes
in both the economic and cultural sphere: t•)as• p•i•duction and
mechanization of labour processes, and a new visual complexily and
'•i•bigui•, as well as new rhythms, forms and mechanics that followed
fi'om lhe changes in the econolny. The Neue Sachlichkeit in the xqsual arU
was also mimetic and 'realist' in the sense that its focus was on the surthce
appearance of the 'new world'. Its mode of perception was, to borrow Fri•
•ghInalenbach's words, 'a deliberately cultivated unsentamentahty .-34
Neue Sachlichkeil, conceived ni•his wa), was arguably an ideolo• of com-
pliance with the increasingly rationalized social and economic order: 35
3, Stanfi)rd Anderson, '&zchlichkeil and Modernity,
or Realist Architecture', in Olto
Wag'ne• Rqflectio•s on the Raiment (• Modernity, ed. by Harry Francis Malgrave (Santa
Monica, CA, •993), PP- 3•3 -6° (PP. 34 °, 34•, 34 •).
3• Otto Wagnec •odern Architecture. trans, by Harry Francis Malgrave (Santa Monica,
CA, •988), p. 93.
a3 Heinrich Kulka, 'Adolf I•oos', Anhitects' •,mbook,
9 (•96°), 7-z9 (P- •o).
• (September •94o),
3a Fritz Schmalenbach, 'The Term •X):ue Sachlichkeit', Art Bulleti•,
() t--()5. See flll-tll(•r Rosernarie ttaag Blcuev, "Introduction', The •¢odow Fu•clional
Buildin.•. Ado•Behne (Santa Monica, CA, •996), especially pp. 47-7o; Mitchell Schwarzei;
G•nma'n Architectural Th.em 3" at•d the Semch fi•r Modecn Met•ti(l' (Cambridge, 993), PP. zo 1-14.
:?• The ideology of Fordism standardization, rationalization, ]•aylorist 'scientific
management' and mass production played a large part in the conceptualization of
 2 4 ° Isotype and A rckitecture in Red Vie•na
To ]osef Frank lhe ideology both compliant
with £nd (omplicit in obiectii•ngof theNeueneeds
Sachlichkeitwas
and desires of the workin•-
c ass subject. He found the
cultivated unsentlmentah•, of ltS detached
point, of •e• particularly pernicious. '[E] ve W human being has a certain
measure of sentimentali• which he has to saOst•,', Frank wrote. The
industrial worker who ll•es altogether solemnly' requires 'sentimental
surroundings' because rest 'presupposes a superfluous, peri•nctory
activity that extends beyond the necessary',._c?ne that engages the
mind as well as the body and therefore pro•des distraction t?om the
'sobriety of the industrial workplace. 'The demand tbr bareness', he
charges, 'is made particularly by those who think continuously, or who
at least need to be able to do so, and who can oblain comlbrl and rest
by other means. Their entertainment is of a higher intellectual order;
they have books and pictures. [...] in this case pla)•ul embellishment is
unnecessa•T'. 36
In his principal theoretical work, A•vhitehtur als S•,mbol. Elemente deutschen
neuen Bauens [Architecture as Symbol. Elements of New Get,nan Buildi•g,
93 ], Frank challenges the fimctionalisl claims of German modernism
and argues in favour of a non-doctrinal, empathetic modern architecture
Modern German architecture may be sachlich, practical, in principle
correct, often even charming, he suggests, but it•femains liik•less because
it has so little to say about modern human experience, the multiplicity
of our world, about hmnan t•elings and desires that are a thnda•nental
parl of modern life and ils symbol: modern architecture. 37
Frank's attacks on the new German architecture were reciprocated
by his German colleagues, ttis contributions to the Werkbund's
}•.•issenhoEsiedhmg a.vo houses tha• he had fi•rnished according to
his principle of assemblage with an assortment of tables and chairs,
patterned carpets and brightly coloured fM•rics were viciously at.lacked
by designers associated with Ihe Bauhaus and by the Wcrkbm•d's own
chief of press relations for the exhibition, who judged the interiors to be
'R•mininely appointed', 'middle class' and 'provocatively conservative'
(F•gure 3)-" 3 8 •rank retahated by attacking lhe flmctionalist claims of
the new German architecture, charging that they actually undermined

.•ue 5'achlichkeit in the •92os. See TNini, 'Sozialpolitik and the Cily in Weimar Germany',
pp. ) 97-•33.
:3•Josef Frank, 'Der Gschnas t•irs G'mut trod der Gschnas als Problem', in Deutscher
•'I•,r•'b.u•td, Bau uud Woh•ung, exhibition catalogue (Stuttgart, •9z7), pp. 48-57.
Excerpted and translated into English by Wilfi-ied Wang as 'Flippancy as the Comfort of
the Soul and as a Problem', in 9IL 3 (•98z), 5 .6.
:•Tjosef Frank. Architektur als S•mbol. Eleme•te dm•tschen neue• Baue•s (Vienna, •93 ),
55.
 Figure 3 (above). Josef Frank,
Weissenhofsiedlung Exhibition,
Stuttgart, double house interior,
9'•7. From Ir•nen-Deko•alion,
38 (x9'-'7), 456.
Figure 4 (left).
(left column) 'Bauhaus tIandles';
(right column) "Handles industrially
produced', by Josef Frank.
From Form, 3 ° (t934), ')•3.
'242 Lsolype and Architecture in Red Vie•na
the very relationship between design and industrial production that the
Modern Movement purported to prolnote. 'Today we pretend to search
tbr the thing as such; the chair as such, the carpet as such, the lamp as
such, things that already exist, to some extent. As a matter of fact., we
are actually looking tbr the occupational possibilities which arise fi'om
them. '39 As an example, Frank illustrates a series of Banhaus-dcsigncd
handles, comparing them to readily available, commercially produced,
ew)lved, rather than invented, designs (Figure 4). The Bauhaus handles
'all consist of basic geometric shapes. They are therefore very "simple",
but are less suitable for use by the hand. Handles for the salne fimctions,
as they look normally, and as they are produced by industry [...] thlfil a
function, but who would call them "functionalist"?'.4•' The point Frank is
making here is that the Bauhaus designs derive less fiom a consideration
of flmction, simplicity or ease of use than from an aesthetic preference
for certain classically derived forms, geometric solids and a machined
'look'. Much of the fimctionalist rhetoric regarding •nachine-tnade
forms, Frank charged, is like•dse merely a smokescreen for aesthetic
preferences.
Neurath flalned a similar argument in 'Rationalislnus, Arbeiterschaft
und Baugestaltung' [Rationalism, the Working Classes and Building
Form], published in DerAufl•au in • 996. He begins by declaring that the
need to regard the building as a kind of machine is self-evident arid yet it.
happens vm y rarely, despite the fact that it is so much talked about. The
reason, he suggests, is a fundamental misconception of the relationship
between the niachine and the building. That relationship is not a inatter
of appearance but rather abom the appropriateness of its component
parts to the tasks that the architectural object (like the machine) is
designed to perforln. One can only judge if a machine is well designed,
Neurath asserts, if one ulidcrstands its inner workings. 4. The same holds
Irtle for architectnre.
Neurath deplored the emphasis in German Modernism on external
appearances, which he saw as a bourgeois phenomenon fostered by high
art, particularly the constructivist machine-art of even socially engaged
artists like Fernand Ldger (Figure 5). The problem, as Neurath wrote
in rciErencc to Ldger's 'Das Gerfist' [Scaffold], which had recently
bccn exhibited iu Vienna, is the assumption made by modern artists
and architects that the rationalization, known to the worker through
his familiarity with machines and with political, union arid collective

:¢• 'Flippancy', p. 6.
Frank,
4"Josef Frank. 'Rum och Inredning', Focm, 3 ° (1934), • 7-25 (P. z 23).
4' Otto Neurath, 'Rationalisnms, Arbeiterschaft und Baugestaltung', Der Auflmu, 4
(x9'26), •19-52 (PP. 49, 5•)
Figure 5. Fernand 1.6get; 'Das Gerfst" [Scaffold] and 'Bohnnaschine' [Drill].
Fi•lres 7 and 8 from Otto Neurada, 'Rationalismus, Arbeiterschaft und
Baugestaltung', Dca'A,•Jbau, :5 (•926), t52-
 244 Isotype and Architecture in Red Vie•na
organizations, is given form in paintings filled with disembodied machine
parts, and that these images evoke the visual sensation of stepping onto the
shop floor of a modern tSctow. But this play of external appearances has
little to do with either the substance of the machine or i• significance for
modern socieV. The idea that the worker will see himself and his role in
society represented in the •nechanistic image•' of modern construcfivist
painting is a grave misconception, Neurath asserts. The representation
of machinelike ol•jects by a jumble of machine parts has as little to do
xdth the rational operation of the machine as the poetic description of a
locomotive as a fire-breathing dragon has to do with the actual working{
of the steam engine. ConstructivisnL Nenrath charges, seems satisfied
make a,speclacleofrationalism rat her than to strive for a deeper engagement
with its principle; it is a form of romanticism that evades realiu,.
This, according to Frank, is also one of the principal reasons why
the 'new architecture' has so little appeal tbr the working classes. The
worker resists the forms of the new architecture, not because they are
incolnprehensible to him but because they are in trot illogical. For
example, today 'die ganze Welt list] bcstrcbt, das Leben injcdcr Wcisc
m6glichst angenehm zu gestalten m•d deshalb Waggons trod Schitfe, so
gut es geht, dem tIaus angleicht, wfihrend die deutsche Baukunst sich
bem/iht, es mngekehrt zu machen nnd die •;otmungen Schla•agen
anzupassen, in dem man zur Not: eine Nacht lang schlafen kann'
[the whole world is endeavouring in evei• respect to organize life as
pleasantly as possible, and therelbre railway carriages and ships arc made
like houses, as fhr as is t•asible, while German architecture is deterlnined
to operate the other way round and model homes on sleeping cars in
which one could sleep for a night if one absolutely had t0].43
In order to develop a real understanding of Wohntechnik [the
technicalities of housing design], the worker ilnlst be given adequate visual
inlk)rmalion by which to judge the efl•:ctiveness of design. Usefiflness or
functionali D' and the expression of fUllCfiOn are by no means the same
thing, Neurath poinks out. A fimctional building does not necessarily
appear to be so, nor is a building that looks functional necessarily actually
fimcfional. 'Zwechnfissigkeit trod Ausdruck der Zweckmfissigkeit sind
durchaus nicht ein und dieselbe Sache' [fhnctionality and expression of
fiinction arc nol al all the same thing].44 Furthermore, neither the lhct
4• Ibid., p. 52.
t:• Frank, ,S!•,mbol. p. 131.
44 Das N•ue Wield. Ei*t Album mit Plan (Vienna, 1932), p. viii. No author is cited, but
tile argument [)tit foi•,ard here is close to Neurath's argument in "Rationalisnms,
Arbeitersch•fft und Baugestalmng'. By his own account, Neurath was 'writing propaganda"
for the Viennese municipal authorities during this time. See Neurath to Rob, letter
[•9•4], Roh Papers, GRI.
 EVE BLAU 245

nor the appearance of useflflness or flmctionality has anything directly to

do with an absence of applied ornament. Pre-war worker tenements were
objectionable, but not because they were decorated with cohmms and
pilaslcrs thai supportcd nolhing (although useless, these fcaturcs did
not affect the way iil which the buildings functioned) but because their
plans did not fiflfil the material purposes of dwelling. Pure fimcdonal
tbnn (Zweckfor, n), Neurath insists, is only an idea ('etwas Gedachtes'),
its material realization in built fi)rm can never be merely fimctional.
Fm•ctionalism in architecture is a principle, not a. quali• of f0nn.
Fu]thermore, there is no correspondence be•veen formal innovation
(or architectural radicalism) and social radicalism, which actually shapes
the life of the masses in a new way. 45
I•ow to educate a politically organized, but se•ni-literate and lnulti-
ethnic urban proletariat towards such high levels of awareness? That was
the problem and the challenge Neurath set himself in the GWM and
the goal lowards which his collaboration wilh Frank was direclcd. It was
not just a •natter of developing in the working class an appreciation for
unornamented simple tbrms and efficiently planned spaces. Rather the
task was to develop discrimination of a very high order: the ability to
dislinguish between appearance and substance at eve D' level of the work.
From the ff)regoing, it seems clear that Neuralh's description of Frank's
designs tbr the spaces of the Gcscllschafks- nnd Wirschalisnmscmn as
'overflow[ing] with the old Sachlichkeit' was not innocent bul purposefldly
situated Frank's work and the musemn itself in the conceptual world of
the old SacMichkeit and (implicitly) on•ide that of the Neue Sachlichkeit
and the contemporary •N•ues Bauen intbrmed by it. 46 It also provides
insight into the didactic pictographic language of •'pe tbrms developed
by Neurath at the G•.

Ill
Olle of the fundamental concepts on which the theoretical conceptions
of the 'old' and 'new' SacMi(:hlwit were themselves founded was the
notion ot lypc : he concept of lype that underlay the ideolo• of the

45 Otto Neurath, 'Komnmnaler Wohnungsbau in Wien', Die lgrm, 6/iii •J31 ), 10(%
10 (p. 106).
wrote retrospectively of the 192os to Frank: 'Bauhaus and many
46 In
94 o, Neurath
others strongly fashion•triven
were but perhaps we are of another time. [...] In
Berlin, everything was so principled, so dramatic, but often backed up by little, if any
action.' l,etter from Neuralh to Frank, 7 April 94 o, Papers of Otto and Marie Neurath,
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Vienna), quoted in Nader Vossoughian, 'Facts and
Arlil•lt:ls. Otto Nemalh and Ihe Social Science of Socializalion' (Phi) Diss., Columl)ia
University, zoo4), p. m x.
 ')4 6 Isotype and Architecture in Red Vienna

Neue Sa.chlichkeit (as Neuralh himself noted) was thai of 'prototype' or

industrial '•pe model', conceived in relation to the rationalization of
the building process fi-om the design of the indi•hdual spatial unit
and architectural object, to the organization of its construction and the
planned reorganization of the tiff. The process was based on rational
analysis of the efficient and cost-efI•ctive organization of space and
production. Theoretically, the role of the architect, in the words of
Hannes Meye,; was no longer that of the 'artist' but rather that of a
speclah•t in organization' since 'building is only organization: social,
technical, economic, mental organization'. 47
A well-known example of such analysis, Alexander Klein's 'Versucb
eines graphischen VerlM•rcns zur Bewertung von •einwohnungs-
grundrissen' [• experimental graphic method for evaluating floor
plans of small dwellings], executed under the auspices of the •,
deployed •Ihylorist methods of time-motion analysis (Figure 6). 4s Space,
in •ein's Taylorized living environment, is shaped by movement and
the execuOon of prescribed tasks in higlfly diflk:renfiated 'specialized'
operational zones. It is not (as in the 'bad' example illustrated by Nlcin)
shaped by conventional notions of tmblic and private, flont and back,
served and senqce spaces. Instead, the Taylorized plan rejec• Wpe
(conceiwed in terins of historically evolved building lbrm associated with
custom and use) in favour of flmction.
By contrast, fl•e concept of type on which the 'old' pre-war Sachlichkeit
was lbunded particularly as it was conceived by the protagonistsof
turn-
of-the-century Viem•ese modernism, Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos was
part ofa fiindamental re-examination of the relationship between design
and socieD'; it was an investigation directed towards the development of a
modern architecture adequate to the social, psychological and economic
demands of modern urban lit• in the new century. In this context,
rationalization of the building process was just one part of a larger
analysis of developing technologies, social practices, habits and custo•ns,
needs and purposes of twenfieth-centuu, urban living. In Vienna and
Central Europe generally, the lheoretical roots of this concept of type
were gromaded in Gotffried Semper's Bekleidun.g:stheo•Te.
The theo• T of Behleidung [dressing or cladding], to which Semper
rclkwrcd throughout his theoretical work but dcvclopcd most f}jlly in
Der Stil ir• (te• technischen und tek¢onische• Kiinsten oder Prahtische Asthetik
[Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arls or Praclical Aeslhelics, •86o-63],
-17 Meyer, cited in Whitflwd, Bauhaus, p. 8o.
,•s Alexander •ein, 'Versuch eines graphischen Verfahrens
zttr Bewertung von •cin-
wohntmgsgrtmdrissen', 1.I,•smulh.s •Ylo•alsh•,fie J)•r Baukun,•t •tnd Stddtebau, (•927),
•96-98,
 B. Good Example
A. Bad Example

3 4

Figure 6. Alexander Klein, '\.%rsuch eines graphischen Verfahrens zur

Bewermng yon l•einwohnungsgrundrissen', Monatshq•efiir Baukur•st
I4,•smuths
u•M Stddlebau, •9•7), 298.
 248 Iso(•,pe and Architecture in Red Vienna
posited the origins of architecture in craft work, particularly in the textile
arts. Cladding and structure, though separate systems (representing
the spiritual and lnaterial demands of the architectural object) evolve
together in Semper's theo W to shape standard building t?]•es that are
themselves in constant evohltion. 49 The implications of this idea fk)r
practice arc twofold. First, •pological lbnn in architeclure evolves out
of use and is theretk•re bound to the social and technical practices of
th• time and place in which it is produced. Second, the concept of
B&leidung identifies the fagade as an expressive field for architecture,
a covering that has an all-important communicative fimction •th
respect to the building and the city: to convey the specific (as opposed
to the typological) meaning of the building and 1o mediate between il
and the world. This idea of modernism as a dialectic be•veen •e and
individuality, convention and innovation, prmqded a foundation for
smnantic and typological research in Wagner's pedago• and practice,
as it did in Loos's criticism and architectural design.
5°
Frank, who was in many ways the intellectual heir to •agner and Loos,
carried the Viennese investigation into type and language lb•vard in lhc
• 9•os. He also redirected it, away floln lhe critique of bourgeois cullural
values in which it had been embedded in pre-war architectural debates,
and towards the development of an architectural ideologw that could
comprehend and initigate the enormous political, econoinic and social
dislocations within Austrian socie• that tbllowed in the wake of World
War I and the dissolution of the I Iabsburg Empire.
With regard to t•ification, Frank saw the Taylorized planning efforts
of Klein and the • as a pointless flmctional difii•I'entiation of space that
replaced the traditional proletarian dwelling •olog7 with a schmnatic
spatial organization that evinced little knowledge of (or interest in)
working-class Wobnkultur. The rationalized domestic plan was, in Frank's
viex•; just another manifeslalion of lhe rcductive codes of the Neue
Sach.lichkeit that sought to free architecture from the cultural baggage of
the past by substituting machine image• y tbr traditional building tbrms.
Tradition, Frank maintained, is an essential part of cognition; the means
by which we know our world. 'Traditionslosigkeit gibt es nicht, und es
geht nicht an, sich vonder ganzen fiberlietErten Kultur zu beiYeien'
[There is no such thing as being completely wilhout tradition and there
is no way to free oneself of cuhural baggage].;"

49 Gottflied Semper; Der Slil i,• den techn£chen -u•d teklonischen K•nslen odes Praktische
,{sthetik, • vols (Frankfurt a. M., •86•>63), •, zz 7.
•" For Scraper's impact on Wagner and Loos, see Werner Oechslin, Stilhii£e und Kern.
Otlo Wagne•; Ado([ Loos uud der •,olutiondw •.•'g zur modernen A•z'hit&tur (Zurich, 1994).
5• Frank, ,5)'•nbol, p. 3•.
 EVE BLAU 249
Frank conceived his own architecture in relation to a complex notion
of tradition in terms of a dialectic of Wpe aud idea. 5• IIis cooperative
Gartensiedhmg Hoffingergasse (•9•1), t•r example (Figure 7),
difi•rcd from the other Gartensiedlung•en designed under tim auspices of
the OVSK, which tended (with tim exception of those designed by Adolf
Loos) toward vernacular village image•)" and picturesqne site planning.
By contrast, Frank's site plan is purposethlly anti-picturesque; the rows
of mfiforln houses are rationally aligned with the interlocking grids
of the existing streets and the new paths and lanes inserted between
the long narrow allotment gardens in the interior of the blocks, which
M•er all were the raison dTtre of the garden settlement itself. The street
fronts of the honses are madecorated, faced with rendered cement in
earth tones and overlaid •th wall trellises I?•r climbing roses aud other
planes. For Frank, the uni W of the whole and unifbrlni W of the parts
were as importaut tBr the conception of the Gartensiedlungas a distinctive
housing lypolo•' as was the connection between house and allcmnent
garden. They expressed the democratic principle and equal status of all
members of the cooperative. •'3
In tim large Gemeindebauten Frank subsequently designed for (t•e
lnunicipality of Red Vienna (Figure 8) he followed his own dictum that it
was uot euough Ibr modern architectnre to be sachlich, buildings needed
also to say something more about the human condition and modern
experience. 5"• ConsequenlI•; Frank engaged the Gernei•debau tyi)olo •'
as both a syntactical and socio-spafial problem. Frank's bnildings are
uucompromisiugly modern uqth flat rooI•, smooth stucco-Ii•ced walls
devoid of applied ornament, rational plans, simple cubic massing and
elegant proportious but they are also responsive to custom aim place
(filled with stnall-scale adjustments to established patterns of use and
circulation) and highly indix4dualistic in terms of colour and detailing;
the walls of •he WiedenhofeMtof (19•4), for example, are orange-red,
the wiudow surrotmds are paiuted white, the metal balcony railings are
green; the walls of Sebastian-Kelch-Gasse, •-3 (19u8) are alternately
sky blue, sandstone red, and grey-green, lettering on the fagades is clark
blue, and the balconies, with railings made of industrial wire mesh, were
originally painted brick-red.

r•e See furtherHermann Czech, 'A Mode fin the Current Interpretation of Josef
Frank', A+U (November 991 ), zo-3o. For the influence ofAlois Riegl on Frank, evident
in these passages, see •rin Lindegren, 'Architektur als .S).mbol: Theot T and Polemic', in
J,s•k)atzk, A•chitecl and Desig, et: ed. hy Nina Stritzle•q•evine (New Haven, C•E •996),
pp. 96-• o •.
53 See Blau. Red •qenna,
pp. 88-• 33.
5t Frank, ,•mboL
p. •. See Blau, Red ITenna, pp. 3o3-zo, 376-8o.
 250 Isotype and Architectu,• in Red Vie•na

Figure 7 (above). Josef Frank, Siedhmg Ioffingergasse, 19 a (courtesy of

Johmmes Spalt). Site plan, Das Neue Wiem ed. by Gelneinde Wien, 4 vols
(Vienna, 1996-•8), I, '-'74-
Figure 8 (opposite). Josef Frank, Sebastian-Kelchgasse, •-3, 9z8.
Photo•-aph c. •93 o (Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, Vienna).

These buildings embody Frank's notion of a non-doctrinal, empathetic

modern architecture that is alive to the variability of hmnan desire and
experience, and that serves rather than dictates use. Frank s concept
of simplc, straighl•b•ard building has little in common with the rich
allusions and monumentality of buildings like the •rl-Marx-Hof and
other Wa•er School Gemeindebaute** (see Figure •). But the careflfl
attention to the particularities of site and the manifold ways in which the
buildings accommodate individuality and differences are also far removed
from the deracinated and de •berately cultivated unsenmnenmh• of
Get,nan Neues Ba,•e.n. aa Spare and empathefic, typical and idiosyncratic,
Frank's contradiction-filled modernism resists the narrowly delined
fllnctionalism of lhe Neue Sachlichheit. In opposition to ils reductive
codes Frank advocated a 'neue Baukunst aus dem ganzen Ungeschmack
unserer Zeit, ihrer Ve•,orrenheit, ihrer Buntheit und Sentimentalitat
[...], aus allem, was lebendig und empflmden ist: Endlich die Kunst des
Volkes, nicht die Kunst f/irs Volk' [a new architecture born of the whole
bad taste of our period, of its intricacy, its motleyness and sentimentaliD,,
a product of all that is alive and experienced at tirst hand: at last, an art
of the people instead of art for the people] .56

55 See note 34.

5• Frank, Symbol,
p. •88.
 ,)5 2 Isolype and Architecture in Red Vienna

1V
Frank's dialectical conception of lyT•e in architectm-e- as the intersection
of social and spatial practices has much in common with the concept
of 'customs' that inlbrmcd Neurath's pictorial language of ISO•PE.
Neurath conceived customs broadl> as encompassing a wide spectrum of
social attitudes, practices and hahils of mind, and as forlns of established
learning and stabilized behaxdour that expand and change over time and
through history. According to Karl Mfillet; they established tbr Neurath
the 'praxeological fom•dations of the social world'. 57 In Neurath's
sociology,, habiks and stable routines of behaxfiour expand in all possible
directions through processes of 'extrapolation' (the processes by which
knowledge, learned through experience in a particular context, is
applied to other contexts), and/or by •neans of 'coherences' (by the
drawing of synchronons connections between cnstolns in a given social-
spatial domain). ISO'IYPEs fimction in this way by induction or
analog•, formation (to represent diachronic processes) and by deduction
(to depict synchronic structures).Ss
•though ISO"I•E picture language, as Neurath stipulated, is not to
be understood as a sign-foi•sign parallel of word language, the individual
figm'es nevertheless fimction like words in syntactical relationship to
each other and can be used 'again and again to make quite different
statements'. In In.te,•ational Pictu,z' Language, Neurath elaborated two
principal methods of combining figures (Figure 9). The first involves
superimposing one i•nage on another (as, for example, in the conjunction
of shoe and facto W to signi(y shoe thctow), a combination described by
Neurath as.joining 'root idea and addition', where one is the dominant
fbrm and the other a quali•,ing figure.
In the second method a sign can be placed outside the 'root picture'
(as, lbr example, in the fignre combining worker; shoe and machine
1o signii}' shoes prodnced by machine), where it fimctions as a 'guide
picture'; providing an adjunct to, rather than sho•dng a quali• og the
root idea. There are, of course, many more roles t2)r the combination of
signs, as well as for the use of colour and scale differences in ISO'IYPE,
but the governing principle m the composition of all signs as teaching
tools is that they are 'memorable', and that their 'meaning' is both easy
to grasp and sticks in the llllild..•,l Each teachm•-p•cture is designed to

57 Karl M/illel; 'Neurath's Theory of Pictorial-Statistical Representation', in Rediscove•itzg

the Fo•gotte,• Vienna Circle. kuslria• Studies o• Otto Neurath and the Vie'n•na Circle, ed. by
Thomas E. Uebel (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 199• ), pp. '_,'_,3-5 (p. 24o).
58 Ibid.,
pp. 242-44.
•'-•) Neurath, 1.•ter, mtional Picture La•u,
ag'e, pp. 27-73; Michael Twyman et al., Graphic
Commu•icalion through IS()TYPE (Reading, 975).
 worker

works

shoe-works

shoes produced
by machine
by machine

coal
shoes produced by hand
by ha ad work

Figure 9. (left) ISO'IYPE techniques for putting signs together;

(right) ISO'Px'PE examples of 'root. idea and addition' and 'guide-picture'.
Both from Olto Neurath, lnler•.alional Piclu, re Lar•gntage (•936),
pictures 7 and 8.
 254 Iso(•,pe and Amhitecture in Red Vie••na
visualize all the important facts in a statement in 'a simple, straightforward
way'. This involves eliminating all the inessential details so that, 'at first
look you see the most important points, at the second, the less important
points, at the third, the details, at the fourth, nothing more if
IllOle, the teaching picture is bad"
.6° Because of its simplici•, the you see
picture
can be kept in thc memo•, far bcttcr than either a verbal description of
the same fhcts or a nlore complex image.
I•inguistically, howeveI; as Mfiller points out, ISO'I•E is a 'weak'
langamge, •4th weak syntactic-semantic relations and a narrow range
of applications. It CaIl be applied to quantifiable relationships, which
can be represented through pictorial statistics, hut it cannot adequately
picture qualitative rclalionships (such as: better or worse than). Neurath
acknowledged this. tie repeatedly pointed out that 'the uses of a picture
language are thr more limited than those of normal languages. It has no
qualities •br the purpose of exchanging views or giving signs of feeling,
orders, etc. It is not in competition with the normal languages; it is a help
inside its narrow limits.'6•
•Ik) Ncurath, the scmanlic limilalions of ISOilSq•E were its conceptual
strength .and pedagogical effectiveness as 'an education in clear
thought', t'• Neurath never developed a grammar of ISO•E or set of
rules (beyond general principles of comhination) that would have trans-
formed the Vienna Method into a semantically concise picture language
because, as he wrote to Carnap, 'i do not accept semanucs. 63 Semantic
sysl.ems (as Ferdinand de Saussure had shown) are closed systems
fl'oln which extra-linguistic facts have m be excluded. 64 Neurath was
philosol)hically opposed to such closed systems.
Neurath's position regarding semantics brings in to focus one of the most
important aspects of the way in which ISO•)E operates as a language
and the significance of Ihat praxis tbr architecture. Neurath's picture
language deviates radically from lhc fimdamental tenet of Saussurian
linguistic theory: the arbitrariness of the sign within the necessarily
closed semantic system of verbal language. Neurath's ISO•E language,
by contrast, is founded on the idea that the sign_•.not arbitrm T but is
instead rooted in the world. ISO•E figm;es are isomorphic in relation
to the perceptual world of their viewers. Furthermore, as pictorial signs,
lhcy have what Fred I. Drclskc calls 'analog surplus value', they givc
(io Neurath, lntt.••mtional Picture Lang•uage, p. "3.
a• Ibid., p. 2o; Mfiller, 'Neurath's Theo•T', p. •3 z.
6• Neurath, [•t•atio•al Picture La•g•tage,
p. • 2.
% Mfille•; "Neurath's Theory',
p. z37.
64 Ferdinand de Saussure, •our•e bt Gen•al Ling•dslics [•9 •6]. by Wade Baskin.
trans,
intro, byJonathan Culler (I.ondon, •974).
 EVE BEAU 255
more infi)rmation than a verbal statement of the same 'facts' would
pro•de. (Dretske uses the example of a pictorial representation of the
statement 'the cup has col'tEe in it'• the picture prmddes inIbrmation
regarding the colour, size and shape of the cup, and how much coffee
is in it; inlbrmation that is not conveyed in the verbal statement.) 65
Similarly, ISO•E language carries a potential manifold of inlbnnation
that extends considerably beyond the capacity of verbal language. The
importance of the 'analog surplus value' of the visual sign tbr Neurath
was m,o•bld: it •nade the 'teaching-picture' easy to read, and it opened
it up to multiple readings. In other words, it was at the same tilne both
clear and indcterininatc.
One of the principal didactic.l?urposes of ISO'IYPE, for Neuralb, was
the teaching of how to a•gue' 6b Arguments in ISO•E 'put factual
statement aRer factual statement, repeatedly building up comprehensive
statemenls from scratch
,,67 They operate, in other words, much like the
logical positixqsts' protocol statements in the construction of scientific
knowledge. The logical positivists held that no l.'D4tauffizssu,ng [world
conccptl or 'reality' could be scicntilically proven; lhc closest thai
philosophy of science could come to a conception of empirical facts was
to construct 'really,' from statements 'protocol statements' about
empirically observed physical phenomena. Protocol statements bad to
be specific in terms of the time and location of any given observation
and the identity of the observer. At the same time, as Neurath insisted,
no direct correspondence exists between the protocol statement (the
individually observed tRct) and the real world. Instead knowledge is
socially produced: 'if one statement can be integrated in the mass of
stalements accepted by the republic of scholars, then it is tn•e, and if not,
tMse'. 6a Science, in other words, is a collective enterprise, and scientific
knowledge is under constant revision through the ongoing process of
65 Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow ((l•Jb,•nation (Cambridge. NL•\, •98•),
p.
137. 'Analog smph•s value' in relalion to Neuralh's pictme language is discnsscd by
•rl H. Miille•; 'Otto Neurath and Con•empora• T Knowledge and Information Societies
A Newly Established Liaison', in Enuclopedia and Ulopia, ed. by Nemeth and Stadler,
pp. 35-42.
66 •ttO Neurath, 'Visual Education
Humanisation versus Popularisation', ed. by
Juha Manninen. in Encyclopedia a•M Utopia, ed. by Nemeth and Stadler, pp. 245-335
(p. 3o4). This text, a manuscript unfinished at Neuralh's death in •945, w•s discovered
in the •99os.
67 Ibid.,
p.
6s Quotation from Rudolf Hailer,
'Otto Neurath For and Against', in
a,d Ulopia, ed. by Nemeth and Stadler, pp. =9-38 (p. •7). Frank had been involved
in these discussions. In 1O• o he gave a lecture at the Verein Ernst Mach on 'Moderne
Wcllauff•ssung und moderne Archi•ckmr' [Modern •k•rl•t Concepl and Modern
Architecture]', the text of the lecture h• not survived: see Long,,]os•Fra•k, p. •4.
 '•5 6 Isotype and Amhitectu•e in Red Vienna

comparing and deciding

between alternative statemenls of observable
fact.
The process of transformation and role of the 'transtBrmer' of verbal
or numerical information into visual statemen• that allow fbr lnuhiple
readings are tbereff•re critical for the eft•ctivcness of ISO•IS•PEs as
statements of lhct with which arguments can be constructed. 69 The
transfbrmation of social inlbrmation into pictorial forln in ISO•ISq•E is
a process of abstraction and generalization; the figure is pictorial, but it
is not realistic. • Nem'ath repeatedly noted, 'one cannot photograph
social lhc[s'. 7°
Here Ncnratb's social-philosophical-pedagogical prqject intersects
directly with Frank's architectural prc•cct, and the cultural and political
significance of both becomes clear. Frank argued for a siinilar relationship
between the architectural object and social f•c•. In Frank's practice the
modern architect in addition to pro•fiding space responsive to the
needs of modern life is charged •th the co•nmunicative fllnctions
of the 'transfbrmcr' to shape in architectolfiC ibrm a dense inibrmation
transfcr aboul Ihc social world in a way that lcaves the object itself open
to multiple interpretation and to change over time and through use. The
architect's role in designing modern lixfing space, according to Frank, is
to prmdde a sca•tbld, a t>amework tbr dwelling; it is not to dictate uses
or the placement of fi•rniture and other objects that, if the space is
to have litE, is the business of the inhabitants. 'Das •2•hnzimlner ist hie
unIkzrtig und nic fertig, es lcbt mit den Mcnschen, die in ibm wohncn'
[the living-room is never unfinished or finished, it lives with the people
who live in it]. 7• Modern architecture conceived in this way leaves
enormous scope for agency and decision in the everyday life (in the
political sense of Michel de Certeau) of the indixfidual. 7•
69 Regarding the role of the transfi)r•ne•;
see Robin Kinross, 'Emigrd Graphic Designers
in Britain: Around •he Second XX2wld War and Afterwards', Jour•ml ofDes'i• Histo U, 3/i
(•99°), 35-57 (P. 42) See tktrtber Robin •moss, 'Otto Neurath's Contribution to
Visual Communication (•9z5-45). The llistory, Graphic Language, and Theory of
lsotype' (M.Phil. thesis, University of Reading, •979); Robert J. Leonard, '"Seeing is
Believing": Otto Neura•h, Graphic Art, and the Social Order', in Economic Engageme,•ts
with Art, ed. by Neil De Marchi and Craufl•rd D. •. Goodwin (Durham, NC and London,
1})99), pp. 45Z-78: Ellen Lupmn, 'Reading Isolypc'. in Des•gw• Discourse, ed. by Victor
Margolin (Chicago, IL and London, •989), pp. 145-56.
7o Neurath, Visual Education,
pp. u9•-9•- This is an important point, emph•ized by
the conflict that emerged in the 93 •s between Neurath and his Isostat team and officials
in Moscow, who insisted on realistic representation.
7•josef Frank, 'Die Eil•richtung des •))bnzimmers', Inr•endekoration., 3 (•9 •9),
4a6-•.
7• Michel de Cerleau, 7"he Practice ofEveuday L•fe [•974], trans, by Steven RendaI1
(Berkeley. CA and I,ondon, •988).
 EVE BLAU 257
Frank's anfi-flmctional polemics have often been interpreted as
reflecting a position with regard to contemporary architecture that
was negative, even antbmodern.
7• In •hct Frank upheld
an ideolo• of
modern architecture that was both affirmative and politically co•nmittcd
to the principles of Social Democracy, to individual fieedom and ethical
equalig,. It was flom these beliefs that his re•qflsion for totalizing, self-
retiwenfia systems derived, and particularly his aversion to Gerlnan
Neues Bauen and the ideolog T of Neue Sachlich.keit, which he regarded, in
the words of Leon Botstein, as 'an attempt to impose a specific national
art, in this case German style •nasquerading as internationalism, on the
a
rest of Europe'. 7"1
Frank's own position eluded his contemporaries as it has subsequently
baffled avchitectmal historians; his opposition to dogma and program•natic
statemenls of purpose made it difficult to identity, a theoretical position
in either his architecture or wrilings. 75 In t•c[, his most important text.,
An•hitektur als Symfml, might best be understood (in terms analogous 1o
the 'anti-philosophical philosophy' of logical positi•dsm) as the 'anti-
theorelical theo W' of Frank's non-doctrinal modernism.
It is not surprising that both Neurath and Frank were drawn to the
•nodernizing, technocratic and socially driven project of the ClAM in the
late • 9•os and early • 93os, as they had been drawn earlier to the similarly
motivalcd projccls of the Bauhaus and Deulschcr Werkbund. II is also
not surprising that both architect and sociologisl became thoroughly
disillusioned •th ClAM as they had with the other institutioual structures
of the Modern Movement in the intm:war period. Frank leti after a yea•;
because the organization seemed to be split between the 'pad•os-filled
fimctionalism' espoused by the German adherents of the neues Bauen,
who do•ninated the congress discussions, and the 'elitist lbr•nalism' of
those who, like l,e Corbusier, opposed that ideology.76
Neurad• ran into trouble with the ClAM during his brief and
resoundingly unsuccesslhl collaboration x•th Cornelius van Eestereu,
chair of the tkmrth congress in x 933, dedicated to 'The Fnnctional Ci•".
The topic was to be examined through analytical maps of thirty-three
cities drawn to the same scale, employing a unified system of symbols
and colours developed by van Eesteren to render 'invisible phenomena

See, for example, Franz Roh's critique of Architel,'t•zr a{s" Svm.bol, in Das Neue l:rat•kJurt,
73
in Long, JosefFra•k, pp. z:•-z3; Pommev and Otto, Weissenhof p. 234, note 2o.
74 Leon Botstein, 'The Consequences of Catastrophe:.losef Frank and Post-World-Watq
Vienna', in,/osefl"ra•tk, ed. by Sttitzle>I,evine pp. 3o-43 (p. 34).
75 See, for exa•nple, Pommer and Otto, Weissenh•!fi
p. 234, note •o.
7• Long, JoseJl•)a•zk, Chapter
5.
 •5 8 Isotype and Architecture in Red Vie•ma
accessible to the eye'. 77 Neurath, as an expert in visualization and com-
munication, was requested by van Eesteren to present the Vienna Method
lbr visualizing urban problems at the • 933 congress. It was hoped that
Neurafl•'s ISO'I•E language (with its intention to 'bridge the gap
between architectural s•nbols and symbols used for the representation
of social facts'), would constitute a 'perfect sign language for town
planning'. 7s The architects also anticipated that Neurath's collaboration
would lend scientific authorily to the CIAM planning efforts and help
to make their specialized knowledge accessible to non-specialists in
particular to ci•, officials and others charged ufith making decisions
regarding their ilnplenmntadon.
Neuralh's presentation
was nol well received. The reason, according to
were looking for a method of translating
Neurath, was that the architects
the COlnplicated into die simple, a top-down process of 'popularizing
knowledge'. The Vienna Method was not designed for that purpose; its
objective was the 'humanization of knowledge', a process that moves in
the opposite direction: 'tiom the simplest to the Inost complicated' to
'build up more comprehensive knowledge'. 79
But the main problem, frown the perspective of both the CIAM architects
and Neurath, lay in the 'limits' of the Vienna Method; its unsuitabili•
to the architects' purposes of rendering 'in•sible pheno•nena accessible
to the eye'. •Ib Neurath, the not:ion of invisible social phenomena
was pseudo-rationalism, speculation and entirely at odds with his
own sociolo•q which was t•undcd on a physicalist view of econo•nics.
Material conditions of liI• (housing, mortality and birdl rates, ntmition,
working horn's, coal production, unemployment and so on) were the
significant indices of the well-being of a socie•,; not 'invisible' economic
laws. was these physicalist lk•atures of the economy that Neuratb's team
of designers 'transfBrmed' into the typographic tigures of ISO•[YPE, and
which were designed to describe social and economic •acts as contingent
and material, and in relative rather than absolute te•s.
The limitations of such a system tBr delineating universally applicable
principles of 'fimctionalist' spatial planning are ob•dous. The architects'
mfiversalizing project was antithetical to the proposes of ISO•E and to
the political philosophy ulidcrpimfing it. 'Much city planning', Neurath
wrote later, 'is fifll of pomposity, with a totalitarian undercurrent,
77 Enrico Chapel, •Reprdsenter la "ville fimctionnelle". Chifti-es, figurati•ms ct
stratdgies d'exposition dans le CbZM W', Les Cahios de la recherche a•chitecturale et mbai•,e,
8 (May •OOl), 4•-5o.
( .to Neurath, 'X lsual Representation of Architectural Problems'. A•thite•tural l•cord
0u]Y 1937), 56-6•.
79 See Faludi, "Otto Neuiath and Planning Theory', pp. •o•-•, and Chapel, 'Otto
Neurath and the CIAM', pp. z3•-3 •.
 EVE BLAU 259
pressing forward some way of life. [...] The dictatorship of planning is
a danger in itself'. In the didactic project of ISO•E, he asserted, 'the
either-or is important', s°
Neurath and Frank shared the core conviction of Austrian Social
Democracy that Bildung was the principal means of advancing the
social interests of the working class. For both of thegn the education of
the working class involved not only the transt•r of knowledge, but (in
Nem'ath's phrase) 'the teaching of h, ow to awue' an eftk)rt to enlarge
the scope tbr political decision and agency on the part of the users of
Neurath's ISO•]•Es and Frank's buildings; creating a common basis
tbr discussion and decision, which they both saw as the timndation
of a democratic society. The perceived limilalions of both projects
the 'weak' semantics of ISO•E and non-doctrinal theow of Frank's
modern architecture were politically motivated and intentional.
Picture language, Neurath asserted, 'is an education in clear thought
by reason of its lim•ks. By devising lnodes of communication that
were non-lineac plural and open to multiple readings and uses, Neurath
in his ISO'I•E system and Frank in his architecture sought to foster
both critical thinking and open-mindedness in the people using them.
As we have seen, the commtmicative fimctions of the architectural
object and the 'teaching picture' were historically and culturally rooted
and in each case depended on a ve• T particular understanding of
tradition. 'Within the transt•r of tradition, there may also appear a
lransl•r of not always being dependent on tradition; it is the element of
democratic fi-eedom. It implies that there are many parallel opinions,
babils, patterns of conduct, which inay be acknowledged institutionally
as well as theoretically',
s• This is the notion of tradition that
informs
the complex historically rooted dialectics of the modernist projec• of
Neurath and Frank. It is a conception of tradition that, by making the
accmnulatcd knowledge of the past available 1o the present, prqjccls
forward and opens up possibilities for the thture. Disciplines that dismiss
tradition, Neura th admonished, and that 'stay exclusively •th the present'
whether in constructing the theoretical ti'amework for a modernist
practice of architecture or for universally applicable principles of urban
planning '•fill vc•, soon only be able to understand the past', s•
S,, Neurath, Empiricism and Sociol%% p. •'47. l,eonard, '"Seeing is Believing"',
pp. 468-75, discusses Neurath's economic views in relation to the ISO•IS•E charts and
to displavs in the Social and Economic Mt•seum.
8• Net;rath, lnlermttional
Picture La•,•uag'e, p. • •, emphasis in the original.
8• Ibid., p. •9.
s3 Otto Neurath, 'National6konomie und •rtlehre'. Zeitschr(fi J•?r t•)lkswirtsch•(6
Sozialpolitik und •waltun,¢, •o (•9 •), 5•-• • (p. 5z): quoted in Cartwvight et al.,
Philosopt 9' between Science and Politics, p. 5.