Hundertwasser, Friedensreich

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Hundertwasser, Friedensreich (1928–2000). Austrian artist and architect, born Friedrich Stowasser, he abhorred straight lines and the rigidity of Modernism (1). His Hundertwasserhaus, at the junction of Kegelgasse and Löwengasse, Vienna (1977–86), with its irregular fenestration, bands of colour, onion-domes, and plantation of trees on the roof, made his reputation as a designer of extraordinary inventiveness. In the 1990s he brought the same verve and imagination to a motorway service station at Bad Fischau (1989–90) and a new district heating plant in Vienna (1988–92). Other projects include the Rueff factory, Muntlix, Vorarlberg (1982–8), the renovation of the Church of St Barbara, Bärnbach, Styria (1984–8), the Kunst Haus, Vienna (1989–91), the Village near the Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna (1990–1), the Wiese housing development, Bad Soden am Taunus (1990–3), and a housing development at Plockingen-am-Neckar (1990–4). He believed that architecture should be more human and in harmony with nature, and that architects would have to follow the painters as they were no longer capable of creating beautiful buildings, having swallowed the tenets of Modernism to the exclusion of all else.

Bibliography

Hundertwasser (1997);
Taschen (ed.) (1997);
personal knowledge

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