His Viennese museum has just reopened, equipped with the latest environmental standards, as he would have wanted. The Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a pioneer of ecology, continues to captivate a quarter of a century after his death with his whimsical colorful buildings.
He himself supervised the opening of this space in 1991. An old abandoned factory, “he transformed it according to his aesthetic ideals to make it a unique piece of art,” explains Andreas Hirsch, to AFP on the occasion of the inauguration of the new permanent exhibition.
The “tenant trees” coming out of the facade, the twisted windows as if they were “dancing”, the dented floor, the mosaics… the building concentrates all the elements dear to this opponent of straight lines, who had written a manifesto against “rationalism” in architecture.
First eco-friendly museum
Aiming to be a “doctor” repairing “sick” buildings in a concern for harmony with nature, Hundertwasser lived at the very top, in an apartment with a green roof, when he came to Vienna.
Presented as “the first eco-friendly museum” in Austria, the Kunst Haus Wien had to live up to its reputation, stresses its director Gerlinde Riedl, dressed in a bright green shirt for the occasion.
Gone are the fossil fuels, it now operates solely on a hydrothermal system, supplied by a well built in the courtyard which also serves to water the 260 plant species populating the space.
The work, lasting nine months and costing 3.5 million euros, modernized the premises, offering a striking contrast to the pompous palaces of the historic center of the former Habsburg capital.
The intimate museum, “one of the most extraordinary sites in Vienna” according to its manager, expects an increase in attendance with its renovation, beyond 100,000 annual visitors.
Because within it, there is “the largest collection of Hundertwasser’s works in the world”: a total of 170 are exhibited, much to the delight of the public fond of “instagrammable” unusual décors.
The Hundertwasser House, a social housing complex located 200 meters away, also attracts a crowd of tourists, even though it can only be admired from the outside. One million visitors arrive by bus each year.
Recycling and compost toilets
Born on December 15, 1928 in Vienna to a Jewish mother, Friedrich Stowasser – who later renamed himself Friedensreich Hundertwasser (“Kingdom of Peace with a Hundred Waters”) – survived in difficult conditions during the war. He lost 69 members of his family in the Holocaust.
A tragedy in contrast to the explosion of life that characterizes his art in an endeavor to “achieve something great,” explains Andreas Hirsch, author of two books on the visionary artist.
Recognized worldwide at his death and now valued while remaining accessible, this great traveler, sometimes compared to the Spanish Antoni Gaudi, completed more than 30 architectural projects, from incinerators to thermal baths, from Japan to New Zealand.
Initially a painter who liked to populate his paintings with spirals, he did not fit into any box.
“He was a unique thinker” who abhorred uniformity and wore mismatched socks, a stubborn provocateur with very demanding ecological concepts as early as the 1950s,” emphasizes the expert.
From a young age, he already advocated recycling, was “very proud to be able to survive on a small amount of food for a whole month” long before debates on degrowth.
He also designed “compost toilets”, dry toilets for composting to avoid wasting water and transform excrements “into gold” nourishing the soil.
An extraordinary destiny that ended in 2000 in the middle of the Pacific Ocean: the bearded septuagenarian wearing his eternal beret died of a heart attack aboard the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship.
He now rests at the foot of a tulip tree planted by himself, on his adopted New Zealand soil.