Vienna - Hundertwasserhaus

At the request of the mayor of Vienna, Leopold Graz, the painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser let his imagination take over and designed the "nature and human-friendly" house on the corner of Löwengasse/Kegelstrasse in 1977. It was built between 1983-85 by the city administration as council housing, although the rents are not necessarily low. The main occupants are artists and intellectuals which pleased Hundertwasser "If privileged people move in here then it proves to me that the house is good". The brightly colored apartments can only be seen from the outside in consideration for the residents, in contrast to the nearby Kunsthaus Wien, also by Hundertwasser, which opened its doors in 1991. There are 50 apartments of various sizes, outlook and structure in the complex which also contains a terrace cafe, doctor's surgery and health food store.

In line with the artist's economic principles only brick and wood were used in the complex, no plastic materials. Each apartment has its own color and round the whole edifice runs a 5km/3mi long ceramic band, joining the apartments and at the same time separating them by an individual color. In general Hundertwasser follows the principle of "the tolerance of irregularity", so that all corners are rounded, the windows are of different sizes; internally bathrooms are irregularly tiled, corridor floors uneven and the walls wavy (on the lowest story the wall provides a surface on which children can scribble and paint). The facades of the complex imitate those of the aristocratic palaces and houses on the Grand Canal in Venice. In addition a piece of the old house was incorporated into the facade so that the "spirit of the old house resettles into the new one" and places it under its protection. Two golden "onion towers" surmount the building which according to Hundertwasser, raises the occupier to the status of a king. Lively elements are the colored crooked pillars, the fountain and the figural decoration, all copies of originals.

Opposite the Hundertwasserhaus in Kegelgasse a turn-of-the-century house was converted by Peter Pelikan and Hundertwasser in 1990-91 into an irregularly-shaped shopping arcade in the artist's typical imaginative design.