Friedrensreich Hundertwasser

Austrian Jewish painter, Friedensreich Hundertwasser had to hide in an underground layer, his only refuge against Nazi persecution which affected his people. Despite the underground aspect of the concept, his ideal house painted in 1962 and a thousand windows which opened on the world. The "right to windows" presented during the programmeWunsch Dir Wasin 1972 , demanded the right for all residents to lean out the window and to modify its surround as far as their arms can reach so that it will be visible from afar that "a man lives here".

Childish dreamer, he drew from anonymous architecture in his organic constructions, taking inspiration from his trips to Yemen, Sudan, New Zealand and Iceland. An ardent defender of harmony between nature and humans, he advocated ecology through projects of roofs covered with forests, like hisHigh Prairies House, theResident Treesof Alserbachstrasse in Vienna, the Disarrayed house for lots of trees and lots of people, the Heddernheim Kindergarten or the Kunsthauswien. Opposed to rational architecture that he deemed morally dead, he repainted facades to humanise houses, in the search for fair art that was capable of creating lasting values.