The Golden Plunger
- The World's Nicest Public Bathrooms!
Kawakawa, Bay of Islands, New Zealand
http://www.kawakawa.co.nz/
Gorgeous, creative and democratic, the public restrooms
in the center of Kawakawa, Bay of Islands, wins the prize The
Golden Plunger - The World's Nicest Public Bathrooms!
Designed in 1997 by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, famous Austrian architect,
painter and print maker, these colorful restrooms feature smashed tiles
and glass in curves and spirals reminiscent of Gaudi. Bottles
embedded in the wall allow natural light to enter. The building is
topped off by grass roof.
These toilets were designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser
as a gift to the town of Kawakawa, where he lived for the last years of
his life. What were average small town public toilets are now an architectual
masterpiece and have become a tourist attraction in their own right (especially
for European visitors who recognise the life work of the man). The only
problem is the number of people who photograph the toilets (both inside
and out). So don't be surprised when somebody takes your photo while you
are availing yourself of the facilities.
Rating: GOOD
Hours: 24 hours
Fee: Free
All toilets in New Zealand are VERY CLEAN and Hygenic
Friedensreich Hundertwasser:
1928
Born in Vienna on December 15th as Friedrich Stowasser.
1929
Death of his father, technical civil servant and officer in World War I.
1934
First juvenile drawings.
1943
First deliberate crayon drawings after nature.
During this year, about 69 Jewish relations on his
mother's side are deported and killed.
1948
School-leaving certificate. Spends three months at
the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, under Prof.
Robin Christian Andersen. Lastingly influenced by
a Walter Kampmann exhibition in the Albertina and
by Schiele exhibitions.
1949
Start of extensive travelling: North Italy, Tuscany,
Rome, Napels, Sicily. In Florence he meets René
Brô and follows him to Paris. Develops his own
style and adopts the name Hundertwasser.
1950
Stays in Paris with Brô and the Dumage family.
Leaves the Ecole des Beaux Arts on his first day.
Paints two murals together with Brô in Saint
Mandé.
1952
First exhibition at the Art Club of Vienna. Brief
decorative-abstract period.
1953
Paints his first spiral. Second stay in Paris. Works in
Brô's studio, St.Maurice. Second Art Club
exhibition, Vienna.
1954
First exhibition in Paris at Studio Paul Facchetti.
Develops the theory of "transautomatism" and
begins to number his works.
1958
Marries in Gibraltar (divorced 1960). Reads his
Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in
Architecture on the occasion of a congress at
Seckau monastery.
1959
Receives the Sanbra Prize at the 5th Sao Paolo
Biennial. Founds the "Pintorarium", a universal
academy of all creative fields, together with Ernst
Fuchs and Arnulf Rainer. As guest lecturer at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, he draws the
Endless Line with Bazon Brock and Harald Schult.
Resigns lectureship following scandal.
1960
Visits Japan. Receives the Mainichi Prize at the 6th
International Art Exhibition, Tokyo. Very
successful exhibiton in Tokyo. Paints in Hokkaido
and returns to Vienna via Siberia.
1961
Marries Yuko Ikewada (divorced 1966).Very
successful retrospective at the Venice Biennial.
1966
Unhappy in love. Ferry Radax films the first
domentary on Hundertwasser in "La Picaudi?re"
and in the Austria Waldviertel region (Lower
Austria).
1967
Travels to Uganda and the Sudan. Touring
exhibition in galleries in Paris, London, Geneva,
Berlin. Nude demonstration for The Right to a
Third Skin in Munich.
1968
Second Nude speech and reading of architecture
boycott manifesto Los von Loos (Loose from Loos)
in Vienna. Travels to California to prepare a
cataloge for a museum exhibition at the University
of California, Berkeley, (organized by Herschel
Chipp). Sails from Sicily to Venice in the "San
Giuseppe T", an old wooden sailing ship. Converts
the ship into the "Regentag" in dockyards in the
Venice lagoon.
1971
Works on the Olympia poster for Munich in
Lengmoos.
1972
Collaboration with Peter Schamoni on the film
Hundertwasser Regentag. Works on the Regentag
print portfolio at the Dietz printshop in Lengmoos,
Bavaria.Friendship with Joram Harel. On the TV
show "Wünsch Dir was" (Make a wish)
demonstrates roof forestation and individual facade
design. Publishes manifesto Your window right -
your tree duty. The Regentag film is shown in
Cannes. Sails around Italy to Elba in the
"Regentag". Death of his mother.
1973
First portfolio with Japanese woodcuts: Nana
Hiaku Mizu. Hundertwasser is the first European
painter to have his works cut by Japanese masters.
Takes part in the Triennale di Milano, where 12
Tree Tenants are planted in windows on the Via
Manzoni
1975
Publishes manifesto Humus Toilet in Munich.
Designs postage stamp for Austria: Spiral Tree,
engraved by Wolfgang Seidel, the first in a series
"Modern Art in Austria". The world travelling
exhibition tour Austria presents Hundertwasser to
the Continents (with catalogue) begins in the
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Continued: Luxembourg, Marseille, Cairo. The
Albertina exhibition of his entire graphic oeuvre
begins a tour through the USA: New York, Boston.
1976
World touring exhibition: Tel Aviv, Warsaw,
Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Dakar. Albertina graphic
tour in the USA: Hanover, Brooklyn, Maryland.
1978
Designs the Peace Flag for the Near East with a
green Arab crescent moon and blue Star of David
against a white background and publishes his
Peace Manifesto. World touring exhibition: Mexico
City, Montreal, Toronto, Brussels, Budapest.
Albertina graphic tour: Canada, Germany,
Morocco.
1979
Peace Flag and Peace Manifesto are sent by
Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky to heads of
state in the Near East. The Austrian State Printing
Office prints three stamps for the Republic of
Senegal and one for the Republic of the Cape
Verde Islands, engraved by Wolfgang Seidel.
1980
"Hundertwasser Day" in Washington, D.C. on
November 18th, proclaimed by Mayor Marion
Barry. Jr. Planting of the first 12 of 100 trees on
Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C.; presentation
of the anti-nuclear poster Plant Trees Avert
Nuclear Peril to Ralph Nader's Critical Mass
Energy Project, Washington, D.C. along with the
environmental poster Arche Noah 2000 for
Germany. Speaks on ecology, against nuclear
power and for an architecture befitting man and
nature in the US Senate, the Corcoran Museum,
the Phillips Collection, all in Washington; in Berlin
on the occasion of the 2nd European Ecology
Symposium, at the Technological Universities in
Vienna and Oslo.
1981
Speech in Vienna on False Art against nuclear
energy and negative avantgarde in modern art on
the occasion of receiving the Grand Austrian State
Prize on 14 February (awarded 1980). Austrian
Nature Conservation Prize. Appointed head of a
Master School for painting at the Academy of Fine
Arts, Vienna. Writes Guidelines for the
Hundertwasser Master School.
1982
As "architecture doctor", redesigns the facade of
the Rosenthal Factory of Selb. Makes ceramic
tongue-beards for the facade of the Museum
Rupertinum, Salzburg .Donates poster Artists for
Peace to the Krefeld Initiative. "Hundertwasser
Week" in San Francisco, proclaimed by Dianne
Feinstein, Mayor of San Francisco, to mark the
presentation of the two posters Save the Whales
and Save the Seas to Greenpeace and Jacques
Cousteau Society. Presentation of the poster You
are a Guest of Nature to the Centre of
Environmental Education, Washington D.C.
1983
Edition of six postage stamps for the United
Nations (2 each for New York, Geneva and
Vienna), engraved by Wolfgang Seidel.
Cornerstone of the Hundertwasser House is laid in
Vienna. Designs a flag for New Zealand, the Koru,
an Unfurled Fern.
1984
Receives the gold medal for the most beautiful
postage stamp from Italy's President Sandro
Pertini, for the 1,20 sFr stamp for the UN in
Geneva. Takes an active part in the campaign to
save Hainburg wetlands. Camps there for a week.
Designs the poster Hainburg - Die freie Natur ist
unsere Freiheit (Free Nature is Our Freedom).
1986
On 17 February the Hundertwasser House is is
turned over to the tenants; 70,000 visitors have
attended the "Open House". 1,000 green
Koru-flags flow in New Zealand; great interest on
the part of the population, press and parliament.
Designs Uluru - Down Under Flag for Australia.
Work on the design of the Brockhaus
encyclopaedia, continuing into the next year.
1987
Cept Europalia 1987, a stamp depicting the
Hundertwasser-House, appears in March in
Austria. Designs the Luna-Luna poster for André
Heller. Designs the poster and redisigns the Palais
des Beaux Arts in Brussels for Europalia. Drafts a
new design for the Church of St. Barbara in
Bärnbach, Styria, and plans a Children's Day-care
Centre in Heddernheim, Frankfurt.
1988
At the invitation of the Mayor of Vienna, Helmut
Zilk, he takes on the task of redesigning Vienna's
Spittelau District Heating Plant. Teaches at the
International Summer-Academy in Salzburg
(Human Architecture in Harmony with Nature
with Efthymios Warlamis and Irenäus
Eibl-Eibesfeldt. Awarded the Golden Medal of
Honour of the City of Vienna and the Golden Medal
of Honour of the State of Styria.
1989
Builds his Hügelwiesenland In the Meadow Hills
(Rolling Hills) model.
1990
Work on architectural realisations:
KunstHausWien; Motorway-Restaurant Bad
Fischau; AGIP Service Station Vienna; HBW
Incinerator Spittelau Vienna; In the Meadows, Bad
Soden, Germany; Village Shopping Mall, Vienna;
Textile Factory Muntlix, Vorarlberg; Winery Napa
Valley, California.
1991
Completion of KunstHausWien, opening on April,
9. Concept and development of architectural
projects: the Thermal Village Blumau, Styria, for
Rogner Austria, which is based on
Hundertwasser's Rolling Hills. Town planning for
Griffen, Carinthia, Austria. Housing comples Living
beneath the Rain Tower in Plochingen, Germany.
Presentation of the Hundertwasser Art Jeton
designed for Casino Austria.
1992
Designs 4 telephone cards for the Austrian Postal
Service and a postage stamp commemorating the
European Council Summit in Vienna 1993. In
Tokyo Hundertwasser's 21st Century Clock
Monument is installed. The Tokyo Braodcasting
System broadcasts a TV documentary on
Hundertwasser's architecture and his ecological
commitment.
1993
Work on the Hundertwasser-Bible project.
1994
Involvement in the campaign opposing Austria's
joining the European Union.
1995
Works on Blumau Hot Springs Village. Redesign of
Martin-Luther-Grammar School in Wittenberg,
Germany. Design for the exterior of a Boeing B 757
for the German Condor airline, rejected.
1996
Unveiling of the Danube ship, MS Vindobona,
redesigned by Hundertwasser. Awarded the
Tourism Prize of Viennese Industry 1996.
1997
Presentation of the architectural project Die
Wald-Spirale von Darmstadt. Exhibition of stamp
designs, graphic work and architecture models at
the Philatelia in Cologne. Awarded the "Grand Prix
of German philately". Works on 366 individual book
cover designs for Bertelsmann Book Club.
Inauguration of the Rogner Thermal Bath in
Blumau, Styria. Design and model of the
architecture project MOP for the city of Osaka,
Japan, and Hoch-Wiesen for Dresden, Germany.
Architectural design and model for a farmers's
market in Altenrhein, Switzerland.
1998
Retrospective museum exhibition at the Institute
Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, Germany. The
Submersion of Atlantis, a ceramic-mural is
installed at Oriente station in Lisbon. Supports an
ecological project for the afforestation of the desert
in Israel with his poster Among trees you feel at
home.
1999
Hundertwasser lives and works in New Zealand.
Architectural projects: Sludge Center, Osaka; The
Green Citadel of Magdeburg and Uelzen Railroad
Station, Germany. Reconstruction work for the
new Kawakawa Public Toilet, New Zealand.
Rejuvenation treatment for the ship Regentag.
Designs the layout and book covers for his oeuvre
raisonné books.
2000
Architectural projects for Teneriffa and
Dillingen/Saar, Germany. Dies on Saturday,
February, 19, in the Pacific, on board of Queen
Elizabeth II from a heart attack. According to his
wish he is being buried in harmony with nature on
his land in New Zealand, in the Garden of the
Happy Deads, under a tulip tree.
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