The Art of Creating Paradise
Some thoughts on Hundertwasser in New Zealand and the creation of a paradise many years in the making and still very much a work in progress
I’ve written previously about my affinity for Hundertwasser, the Austrian-born artist, architect, environmental activist and conservationist who fell in love with New Zealand upon his first visit, became a New Zealand citizen and spent most of his later years there.
Hundertwasser’s art is often described as ‘organic’ and ‘surrealist’, and his architectural style most frequently draws comparison to that of Antoni Gaudi. Incidentally, the two appeared alongside Jørn Utzon and the Sydney Opera House on a Sydney Morning Herald list of the world's ten weirdest buildings and their architects.
Hundertwasser apartment complex in Vienna, Austria
The Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei north of Auckland has unfortunately experienced financial troubles lately, nearly facing closure just a year after opening, due to ’COVID-19 wiping international visitors, the recent Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle's State Highway 1 Brynderwyns closure.’ Photo: Greg Hay
Hundertwasser public toilets in Kawakawa, New Zealand
Atlas Obscura aptly describes the Hundertwasser-designed toilets in the small North Island town of Kawakawa as ‘possibly the world's most architecturally important public bathroom.’
A Kindred Spirit
Regrettably, I had not encountered Hundertwasser at all until picking up a book published last year about his life and relationship with New Zealand.
They say don’t judge a book by it’s cover, but I could tell before having read a single word that I had just discovered a kindred spirit. I instinctively bought the book after skimming it for a matter of seconds, and I could not be happier that I did.
The book is called Hundertwasser in New Zealand and is subtitled The Art of Creating Paradise. Written by Viennese writer Andreas J. Hirsch and published by Auckland based Oratia Media, it is a beautifully designed book with numerous colour illustrations and photographs of Hundertwasser’s life and work. As noted by Bill McKay in his review for ArchitectureNow, ‘It’s absolutely worth having for a whole lot of reasons, including owning one of those unfashionable things, beautiful books.’ I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t proudly placed my copy of the book on display at home (atop other coffee table books about New Zealand). Likewise, John Daly-Peoples calls it ‘a handsome publication’ in his review on his own New Zealand Arts Review blog.
Daly-Peoples suggests that, ‘In some ways Hundertwasser could be seen as the archetypal New Zealand artist/architect. He displayed the No 8 wire mentality in his approach to architecture and design as well as a desire to own his own piece of land and developed an affinity with Māori. He also drew inspiration from the landscape as well as seeing the need to integrate the individual into the physical and natural environment.’
I had not heard this expression ‘No 8 wire mentality’ before, so I looked it up. According to Wikipedia:
‘As a consequence of the ubiquitous use of number 8 wire in New Zealand, remote farms often had rolls of number 8 wire on hand, and the wire would often be used inventively and practically to solve mechanical or structural problems other than fencing. Accordingly, the term "number 8 wire" came to represent the ingenuity and resourcefulness of New Zealanders, and the phrase "a number 8 wire mentality" evolved to denote an ability to create or repair machinery using whatever scrap materials are available on hand.’
It was such a pleasant surprise for me to learn of this unique overlap between an artist/architect that I love and a culture/country that I love, a special connection that relates directly to the inclination towards resourcefulness, reuse and repair which Art of Diversion seeks to promote. Kindred spirits, indeed. I only wish I’d found you sooner, Hundertwasser!
A Paradise Many Years in the Making
As one might expect from the title Hundertwasser in New Zealand, the book does not dwell as much on Hundertwasser’s life prior to his arrival in New Zealand in 1973, but it’s focus on his New Zealand years demonstrates that in New Zealand he finally found a home, a place receptive to the ideas that he had been championing up to that point.
It was in 1958 that Hundertwasser publicly read his Mouldiness Manifesto Against Rationalism in Architecture, from which I offer the following excerpts (one might say the ‘juiciest bits’):
‘The tangible and material uninhabitability of slums is preferable to the moral uninhabitability of utilitarian, functional architecture. In the so-called slums only the human body can be oppressed, but in our modern functional architecture, allegedly constructed for the human being, man’s soul is perishing, oppressed…
Today we live in a chaos of straight lines, in a jungle of straight lines. If you do not believe this, take the trouble to count the straight lines which surround you. Then you will understand, for you will never finish counting…
This jungle of straight lines, which is entangling us more and more like inmates in a prison, must be cleared… But to clear a jungle you must first become aware that you are in one, for this jungle took form stealthily, unnoticed by mankind…
The straight line is godless and immoral…
The irresponsible vandalism of the constructive, functional architects is well known. They simply wanted to tear down the beautiful stucco-façade houses of the 1890s and Art Nouveau and put up their own empty structures. Take Le Corbusier, who wanted to level Paris completely in order to erect his straight-line, monstrous constructions. Now, in the name of justice, the constructions of Mies van der Rohe, Neutra, the Bauhaus, Gropius, Johnson, Le Corbusier, Loos, etc. should be torn down, as they have been outdated for a generation and have become morally unbearable…
In order to rescue functional architecture from its moral ruin, a decomposing solution should be poured over all those glass walls and smooth concrete surfaces, so the moulding process can set in.’
Ulrich Conrads, editor of the wonderful book Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, more or less credits Hundertwasser’s Mould Manifesto as having sparked Conrads’ idea for compiling a collection of manifestoes into one book. As Conrads notes in the Foreward to Programs and Manifestoes, the statements Hundertwasser made were provocative, but at the same time, no one was really surprised to hear someone like Hundertwasser so vehemently oppose the increasingly dominant architectural style being ‘perpetrated’ by the functionalist architects of his day. Hundertwasser was articulating a sentiment held by many, an opposition against what they felt was an unnatural architecture (sterile, rigid, oppressive, undemocratic). Why should a building’s inhabitants not have more say over its design and use and appearance? Fair enough.
A Paradise Still Very Much a Work in Progress
Hundertwasser may have found a home in New Zealand, but sadly, there are few, if any, places in the world, not even New Zealand, where his manifesto has been allowed to truly manifest.
Hundertwasser clearly believed, as I do, that people are far more likely to have a deeper connection to nature while simultaneously having a sense of ownership over the built environment (and a desire to maintain and beautify it) when they are given the opportunity to play a direct role in the design and construction of that built environment. Homes and neighbourhoods are meant to be lived in; their construction must not merely serve as a means to some economic end for persons far removed from the daily life of the local community.
I also think Hundertwasser gave expression to something that actually has very little to do with rights to private property. I think he was expressing a fundamentally different point of view about what constitutes a healthy relationship with risk. He was confronting what I think he perceived as a disturbingly irrational concern for safety, one that since his time has only become more exaggerated as multiple layers of bureaucracy continue to increase in regulating every aspect of the built environment, if not every aspect of our lives.
If Hundertwasser were alive today, he might be pleased to see some progress being made: a greater emphasis on sustainability, a trend towards ‘greener’ buildings, a glimmer of hope that modern society is beginning to rediscover what indigenous cultures have always understood about the importance of having an intimate connection with the land.
Yet, I think he would also likely be very dismayed with the continued expansion of the state and with the self-inflicted way in which we have let technology creep into our lives. I think he would be more vocal than ever in insisting that we must stop creating and enforcing laws and policies which prevent individuals from invoking what should be their natural right to build and modify the built environment as they see fit. And he would not hold back in calling out everyone who wilfully complies, least of all architects.
To quote, again, the man himself: ‘To clear a jungle you must first become aware that you are in one.’
KUNST HAUS WIEN, the Hundertwasser Museum in Vienna
Fittingly, the Hundertwasser Museum in Vienna is currently closed for renovations to ‘modernise’ the building ‘in accordance with the applicable standards’. It is scheduled to reopen in early 2024.
I wonder if Hundertwasser would care to see the building retrofitted with new air conditioning and technology even for the sake of preserving and promoting his art.
In a statement about the ‘geothermal renovation’ of the building, the Director of the museum said, ‘At KUNST HAUS WIEN, we want to mobilise the power of art to reach people on the climate issue, also emotionally, and encourage them to free themselves from resignation and powerlessness in connection with the climate crisis and to turn to their own courage and ability to act.’
Well, I can’t argue with that. Again, I find in Hundertwasser and his acolytes a spirit that resonates with everything that Art of Diversion stands for. I believe our best hope for a brighter future is for creativity to be the catalyst for change. Artists, architects, designers and makers must lead the way.
Let Us Pray Manitou Wins, 1981
Among my favourite artworks of Hundertwasser’s is a screenprint called Let Us Pray Manitou Wins.
Editions of Let Us Pray Manitou Wins showing different colour variations
Although there are other Hundertwasser works that I like more for their composition, I do like the composition of this one as well. It seems to depict, as his work often does, some spiritual struggle between man and nature. It could be interpreted as suggesting a harmonious balance, not necessarily a hope that nature will prevail over mankind, but that life itself will ultimately prevail.
But what really speaks to me is the title.
I spent many weeks as a child on my grandparents’ farm in rural Kentucky, a beautiful piece of land located on the outskirts of a small community called… Manitou.
The name according to the Algonquian groups in Native American theology refers to the mysterious fundamental lifeforce that pervades the world and controls all of nature.
Let us pray.
