A Drunk's Worst Nightmare

October 11, 2005 8:25 AM

Hundertwasserhaus.Designed by Austrian architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser for free because "it was worth it" and owned by the city of Vienna, the Hundertwasser House is a tourist site, social and political gathering place, and a piece of art. With no straight lines or flat surfaces, bright colors, and organic low rent apartments, the Hundertwasserhaus is a truly unique version of public housing.
posted by dios (21 comments total)

I would go a long way to be able to live in something like that, I live in an old red brick block of flats in Brixton, London and boy could this area do with something like that.

Or I'd settle for something like BedZed in Birmingham.
posted by invisible_al at 8:32 AM on October 11, 2005

Wow. That name has been stuck in my head for 20 years. At last I understand Leon's Address.
posted by The Bellman at 8:34 AM on October 11, 2005

Nice, thanks dios!
posted by carter at 8:36 AM on October 11, 2005

You probably wouldn't want to live there, al. There are people outside your window all day every day, taking pictures and pointing.


Though, I think you are allowed to decorate outside your window however you want and as far as you can reach, which is a cool perk, I suppose.
posted by shoepal at 8:38 AM on October 11, 2005

You probably wouldn't want to live there, al. There are people outside your window all day every day, taking pictures and pointing.

It's also hell to furnish.
posted by three blind mice at 8:45 AM on October 11, 2005

how wonderful. i'm afraid i'd be one of those ppl pointing and taking pictures, annoying the residents, so that i could go back to the city i live in and say "why can't we make something like that here?". thanks, dios!

and thanks also to the bellman for a link that's going to occupy far too much of my time today.
posted by lord_wolf at 9:00 AM on October 11, 2005

and thanks also to the bellman for a link that's going to occupy far too much of my time today.
posted by lord_wolf at 10:00 AM MST on October 11 [!]

Yeah I'm just starting 'B.'
posted by carter at 9:05 AM on October 11, 2005

One thing that might not be immediately apparent from the post: the second link is part of the web site of the KunstHausWien (home page), which is essentially the museum Hundertwasser built to house his own works. It's a few blocks away from the Hundertwasserhaus, and is itself a very cool building (GIS). Well worth a visit if you're ever in Vienna.
posted by kickingtheground at 9:22 AM on October 11, 2005

Hundertwasser is without a doubt one of the most important artists of the late 20th century.

Check his site at Hundertwasser







He was first and foremost a painter. Architecture and design were, kind of, extensions of his ideas about art.

His visual signs are metaphors about biological mechanisms. If they want to stay in harmony with nature Hundertwasser thinks that humans have to become aware of their five skins:
- first skin: the epidermis.
- second skin: man's clothes.
- third skin: man's house. (“Art for art is an aberration and architecture for architecture is a crime”)
- fourth skin: man's social identity, his family and his environment.
- fifth skin: man's belonging to humanity and the global ecological system.

The awareness of our five skins generates, he thinks, the conscience of the most innate of all human rights, the “right of window”. By right of window he means that humans have the innate right to decorate as they please their windows, their homes and themselves through their clothes. The artist now becomes a militant, a fighter for “the human rights of window” and his tool par excellence is his painting that becomes so many advertising posters for the causes of his fights against economic or political abuse of power, technological excesses or outrageous acts against nature.

Hundertwasser is first and foremost a thinker about the human condition who accumulates scientific knowings that he confronts with his moral philosophy.
posted by laodan at 9:28 AM on October 11, 2005

interesting and useful housing realization in search of a competent website design: please enquire within--hundertwasserhaus
posted by beelzbubba at 9:43 AM on October 11, 2005

Carter: Don't miss the main site. I thought I was a serious Bladerunner fan, but this is . . . well it's almost creepy.
posted by The Bellman at 9:44 AM on October 11, 2005

Now THAT'S a good Front Page Post!!
Thanks, dios!
posted by Floydd at 9:45 AM on October 11, 2005

I agree beelzbubba. I would have appreciated an initial perspective shot but maybe that was just my route of link meandering. That's nothing against the post - first class dios, thanks. I love this kind of stuff and it's particularly good somehow that the talent is being lavished on design for people and not the hoi polloi.
posted by peacay at 10:38 AM on October 11, 2005

MeltyArchitectureFilter

Not quite as weird: les schtroumpfs. Interesting for geneva, though.

Master of weird architecture: Gaudi. If you're ever in barcelona, check it out.
posted by lalochezia at 10:45 AM on October 11, 2005

And Crazy House in Dalat in Vietnam (this bunch from google images is better than any website I've seen) is definitely worth a visit.
posted by peacay at 11:33 AM on October 11, 2005

Don't forget the Kawakawa Public toilets in Northland, New Zealand.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:52 AM on October 11, 2005

I've been here! Well, I've been to the musum across the street. It was my favorite thing in Vienna. Hunderwasser also designed either a recycling centre or a garbage disposal facility or something like that (I searched, but can't find it right now), also in Vienna, that you can see in the distance when you're on the top of the ferris wheel.
posted by easternblot at 11:57 AM on October 11, 2005

As mentioned, the Hundertwasser museum is a great building too.
Here is another fine thing to see in Vienna, in a building that you will (correctly) believe to have been an insane asylum.
posted by Aknaton at 12:04 PM on October 11, 2005

bizarre! I just got back from a trip to Vienna (and the haus) two days ago! That's the 3rd strange coincidence about the trip so far. jeepers creepers.
posted by krunk at 2:53 PM on October 11, 2005

Great post, dios, and great commentary laodan! Thanks!
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:36 PM on October 11, 2005

Oh, the dude has got himself a musical..
http://www.hundertwassermusical.info/ so I accidentally just discovered.
posted by peacay at 7:42 AM on October 12, 2005