Hundertwasser on Architecture

We are living in a period of great upheaval, at a turning point for humanity. The era of absolute rationalism is ending.

The straight line is godless and immoral. The geometric straight line is not a creative line, it is a duplicating line, an imitating line, not existing in nature. The only line which does not correspond to man as the image of God.

The blind, cowardly and stupid application of the geometrically straight line has turned our cities in to deserts, in the aesthetic, psychological and also ecological sense.

Houses are the third skin of man. Man as an individual has forgotten that he has the right to shape his surroundings himself and must not accept prefabrication as inevitable.

The apartment-house tenant must have the freedom to lean out of his window and as far as his arms can reach transform the exterior of his dwelling space (window right).

The outer walls of our modern buildings are our prison walls, for they are anonymous, without emotions, aggressive, heartless, cold and yawningly empty.

In a house, an individually different, organic design of the outer wall of each individual apartment is of fundamental significance, so that the resident can identify with his house from outside.

Happiness in housing is an infinitely more precious quality than conformity to the grid system.

Our computers for architecture and town planning must be fed with all ecological data, all environmental long term information and all information of individual creative needs for beauty and romance, and all information concerning the deep rooted human longings.

We suffocate in our cities through poison and lack of oxygen. We destroy systematically the vegetation which gives us life and lets us breathe. We walk alongside grey and sterile façades of houses. It is our duty to reinstall the rights of nature with all means.

If we must go below nature, that means, symbolically and practically, too, that we must again live in houses where nature is above us, for it is our duty to put nature, which we destroy by building the house, back on the roof. The nature we have on the roof is this piece of earth that we killed by putting the house there.

The horizontal belongs to nature – the vertical may belong to men. All that is white in winter must be green in summer. All that gets wet with rain, all horizontal surfaces under the sky, belong to the realm of plant life.

Tree Tenants Are the Ambassadors of the Free Forests in the City

Tree tenants can be seen from far away and benefit many people, especially those who walk around the house and dwell nearby.

The tree tenant symbolises a turn in human history because he regains his rank as an important partner of man.

The relationship man - tree must again have religious dimensions. Only if you love the tree like yourself will you survive.

We suffocate in our cities through poison and lack of oxygen. We systematically destroy the vegetation which gives us life and lets us breathe. We walk alongside grey and sterile facades of houses. It is our duty to reinstall the rights of nature with all means.

Cars have chased the trees up into the storeys of houses.

We suffer daily from the aggressivity and the tyranny of our vertical sterile high walls. But streets in the cities will become green valleys where man can breathe freely again.

Tree tenants dwell inside the walls of the house in an area of about one square meter behind the windows.

The windows are set back and you can look at the tree tenant and outside.

The tree tenant has one cubic meter of soil at his disposal and can become quite big.

The tree tenant pays his rent in much more valuable currency than the humans.

1.
Tree tenants create oxygen.

2.
Tree tenants improve the city climate and the well being of dwellers. They bring the needed moisture into the desert climate of the city, reduce the dry-humid and the cold-warm contrast.

3.
Tree tenants act like vacuum cleaners. More so. They swallow even the finest and poisonous dust. There is less dust in the apartment and in the street.

4.
Tree tenants swallow noise. They reduce the echoes of the city noise and create quietness.

5.
Tree tenants protect you from outside view like curtains and create shelter.

6.
Tree tenants give shadow in summer but let sunlight through in winter when leaves have fallen.

7.
Butterflies and birds come back.

8.
Beauty and joy of life come back. Living quality is improved with this piece of own nature.

9.
The tree tenant is a symbol of reparation towards nature which is extremely visible. We restore to nature a tiny piece of the huge territories which man has taken away from nature illegally.

The tree tenant is a giver. It is a piece of nature, a piece of homeland, a piece of spontaneous vegetation in the anonymous and sterile city desert, a piece of nature which can develop without the rationalist control of man and his technology.

1980/1991/1996

The Horizontal Belongs to Nature

From Biblical times man was called on to “have dominion over the earth”.

Modern man has abused this thought and murdered the earth.

Now we must go back underneath nature, what has to be understood symbolically and practically.

We must build houses where nature is above us. It is our duty to put the nature, which we destroy by building the house, back onto the roof. We must give territories back to nature which we have taken from her illegally. The nature we put on the roof is this piece of earth that we murdered by putting the house there.

Afforested roofs also have ecological, health and insulation advantages. An afforested roof produces oxygen and makes life possible. It absorbs dust and dirt and converts the earth. Body and soul of man is at ease, both, who looks at it as well as who lives beneath it.

Another advantage of the afforested roof is the noise-absorbing effect.

Afforested roofs create quiet and peace. Furthermore, they protect you from harmful environmental influences, radiation and fire. Even water could be purified, after going through the grass layer it will be cleaner than before.

The economical side is not to be underestimated. The afforested roof serves as a climate control in winter in order to save heating material and to keep cool in summer.

Spontaneous vegetation flourishes on the Hundertwasser Art Centre’s roof in a forest of 4,000 plants, fruit and indigenous trees, and rare native species grown by Tawapou Coastal Natives in Northland.  There are plants with medicinal qualities and fruit trees including peach, plum and apple.

The trees on the roof include one of the rarest plants in the world, Pennantia baylissiana (Kaikomako). Only one plant is left in the wild - on a rocky cliff on the Three Kings Islands, off the northern coast of New Zealand. 

Other native New Zealand plants flourish on the Hundertwasser Art Centre’s roof.  Corynocarpus laevigatus (karaka), Streblus banksii (milk tree), Sophora chatamica (kowhai), Nestegis apetala (coastal maire), Rhopalostylis sapida (Nikau) and Alectryon excelsus (titoki) can all be discovered.