Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist, architect and environmentalist known for his colorful, organic and irregular style. He believed that nature and human creations should work harmoniously together. Hundertwasser saw correcting nature as an irreparable mistake, arguing that communities should protect natural landscapes and that streams regulated into concrete channels have negative environmental impacts. He advocated for an irregular, organic approach that works with nature rather than against it.

1. HUNDERTWASSER

2. “ Everyone is given an incredible capital of creativity
at birth; by the fact of birth everyone is linked to the
origins, to the cosmos. He is still in paradise, as it
were. This is a Garden of Eden of incredible
proportions, an infinity as limitless as the stars in the
sky. Everyone is as different from the others as one
star is from the others.”
Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
He was born in 1928 in Vienna.
Born Friedrich Stowasser, he changed his name to Friedensreich
Hundertwasser. His Friedensreich Hundertwasser
name,
means, "Peace-Kingdom Hundred-Water".
He died in the year 2000 on his way from New Zealand to Europe on
board the Queen Elizabeth 2.
Hundertwasser was a painter, arquitect, ecologist and visionary.

3. Do you know what a
spiral is?
Out of a point in the
middle, a spiral spins
out in circles that get
bigger and bigger…
THE SMALL WAY, 1991

4. The Garden of the Happy Dead, 1953.

5. “To paint is to dream. When I paint, I dream. When the dream is over, I cannot remember
what it was about. But the picture remains. That is the harvest of my dreams.” Hundertwasser
What does the picture of
your dream look like?
WAIKATO ISLAND AND STEAMER OF RIO. 1977

6. The other names he chose for himself, Regentag and Dunkelbunt, can be translated to
"Rainy day" and "Darkly multicoloured".
“ Dunkelbunt means:
glowing in pure, strong
and deep colours, a
little sad like seen on a
rainy day” Hundertwasser
RAINY DAY IN SIAM, 1977.
Which ones are your favorite colours?

7. “ If you put a crown on your head, you are a king, and if you put on
two, you´re the emperor”. Hundertwasser
HATS THAT WEAR YOU, 1982.

8. HUNDERTWASER AND
NATURE
LANDSCAPE WITH SILVER STREAM, 1964.
…THE ECOLOGIST
…Hundertwasser’s thoughts are a
philosophy of the aesthetic, life ANTIPODE ISLAND, NEW ZEALAND, 1975.
and art in harmony with nature.

9. “ There Are No Evils in Nature.
There Are Only Evils of Man.”
GREEN TOWN, 1973/78

10. BIRD SINGING IN A CITY TREE, 1951
“A community should
not consider it an
honour how much
spontaneous vegetation
it destroys; it should
rather be a point of
honour for every
community to protect as
much of its natural
landscape as possible.“
Hundertwasser.

11. HUNDERTWASSER ARCHITECT
Window Right
“A person in a rented
apartment must be able to
lean out of his window and
scrape off the masonry
within arm's reach. And he
must be allowed to take a
long brush and paint
everything outside within
arm's reach, so that it will
be visible from afar to
everyone in the street that
someone lives there who is
different from the
imprisoned, enslaved, standa
rdised man who lives next
door.”
Hundertwasser, January
22, 1990

12. “When we dream alone it is
only a dream, but when many
dream together it is the
beginning of a new reality”
Friedensreich hundertwasser
HUNDERTWASSER WORKING ON THE PAPER MODEL
FOR THE “ CUT EYE” HOUSE, 1985,

13. There Are No Evils in Nature.
There Are Only Evils of Man.
When man thinks he has to correct nature, it is an irreparable mistake every time.
A community should not consider it an honour how much spontaneous vegetation it destroys; it should rather
be a point of honour for every community to protect as much of its natural landscape as possible.
The brook, the river, the swamp, the riverside wetlands as they are, the way God created them, must be
sacred and inviolable to us.
Correcting a stream only has evil effects, which are expensive in the end: the lowering of water tables, the
destruction of forests, the transformation of large areas into steppes, no regeneration of the water, which
runs off too fast. The river wetlands can no longer fulfill their sponge-like function: the absorption of
excess water and slow feedback in dry spells, like a good piggy bank in times of emergency.
The regulated brook becomes a sewer. Fish die, and there are no fish in the brook because they cannot swim
through the regulated channel. Floods, with all their devastating consequences, all the more after regulation.
Because too much water runs off too quickly, converging in great quantity without any chance of being
absorbed by the earth and the vegetation.
Only a stream with a high waterline flowing irregularly can produce pure water, regulate the water household
and conserve the fish and animal populations to the benefit of man and his agriculture.
Now, almost too late, this age-old adage is being recognised and the courses of rivers and streams, which
had been straightened in concrete channels, are being destroyed in order to restore the previous irregular
state. What irony!
So why regulate a stream if you have to deregulate it afterwards?
Hundertwasser, May, 1990