Vivid color, organic forms, and a loathing of straight lines were just a
few stalwart characteristics in the unique practice of Friedensreich
Hundertwasser (1928-2000). A non-conformist hero, the artist, architect,
and activist left a blazing trail of imagination and ideas in buildings,
paintings, manifestos, initiatives, and more. Hundertwasser's best-known
work is considered by many to be the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, a
structural synthesis of the vitality and uniqueness that determined the
artist's entire oeuvre. For Hundertwasser, rational, sterile, monotonous
buildings caused human misery. He called for a boycott of the modernist
paradigm championed by the likes of Adolf Loos, and campaigned instead
for an architecture of creative freedom and ecological commitment. A
fierce opponent of straight lines, which he called "godless and
immoral," Hundertwasser was fascinated by the spiral, drawing also on
the Secessionist forms of Klimt and Schiele. This richly illustrated
book traces Hundertwasser's style and vision not only for each building,
but for society at large. From naked addresses at the end of the 1960s
to worldwide architecture projects and alternative blueprints for
society, author Pierre Restany explores Hundertwasser's most
high-profile and innovative ideas in a thrilling introduction to a
pioneering 20th-century mind.
