Picture above isn’t a painting, it’s a real building and it’s a real residential block and there are people literally staying inside!

My first impression about the building was that why would the residents allow the kids to simply paint the wall. It looks as if the kids drew some uneven lines to partition each unit and painted each unit with different colors to make its design looks so random. But whoever the kids are, they must be brilliant painters! At least I have fallen in love with this whimsical architecture.

If you still have no idea what is going on with the building, you gonna look up Hundertwasserhaus, a renowned colorful complex designed by the controversial Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasse, a painter that created architecture! Friedensreich Hundertwasse was born in Vienna in 1928. As early as the 1980s, Friedensreich Hundertwasser was creating a stir with his natural designs in Vienna. He reacted against the conventional boring architecture and wanted architecture that was closer to nature and hence, introduced irregular structures and vegetation in a harmonious fashion.

I have been hearing about Hundertwasserhaus and wanted to visit it so badly. Finally I made it here to Vienna, where Hundertwasserhaus is located. See the building behind me? It’s completely out of tune with the buildings around it. The Hundertwasserhous in Vienna cannot be applied with normal standards.

The whimsical shape of the building, the colorful paints, the undulating lines, the non-symmetrical patterns, irregularly shaped shiny pillars and onion spires were pretty much sum up the description of Hundertwasserhaus.

According to Friedensreich Hundertwasse, daily life without intimate contact with trees, plants, soil and humus is inhumane. Is it not about placing increased numbers of authorised plants like decorative furniture in authorised vases, buckets and tubs all over the place, not about creating a bigger area of lawn cared for by the state. Only a wild tree is a genuine partner who gives us more than we can imagine.

The house was constructed from 1983 to 1985 and features a very organic design, with its uneven floors and plentiful flora. Nature is integrated into the building, with not only a garden in the backyard of the Hundertwasserhaus, but also shrubberies and trees on the roofs of the building. Its roof is covered in grass and trees are grown from within, their limbs extending from the windows.

Within the block, there are 52 apartments, four offices, 16 private terraces and three communal terraces, and a total of 250 trees and bushes. Today almost 200 people are still living in the apartments.

As Hundertwasser believed windows constitute a house’s soul, all of them vary in size and shape. Each of them is framed by a complementary colour.

It’s not possible to get a full view of the building because it is standing shoulder to shoulders to other houses. If you would like to capture a photo of someone with the house as backdrop, you gonna place the camera as close as the ground and shoot upwards, as depicted in the photo below.

It’s kind of challenging to snap a portrait with the house.

You can find Hundertwasserhaus museum just few blocks away from Hundertwasserhaus.

Controversy

In 1983 Hundertwasser started with the conversion of a public residential block into a fairytale-like house with no elements close to any contemporary architecture and non single structure that can be described as regular. When it was completed two years later, his preposterous creation caused quite a stir and some architecture critics quickly dismissed his work as kitsch. However, after the completion of Hundertwasserhaus, it soon started to attract visitors to this otherwise quiet residential area.

Location

Note: If making a visit to the Hundertwasserhaus, remember to respect the fact that these are private residences and remain unobtrusive.