A 10TH ANNIVERSARY SALE BOOK Book title: Friedensreich Hundertwasser Architect, designer with rich tile mosaics, sloped floors and colorful creative buildings. Photo: Motorway Restaurant, Bad Fischauin Austria. Courtesy of website: http://www1.kunsthauswien.com Visit their site to see more amazing buildings. Hundertwasser's work is more whimsical than < a href= > Antonio Gaudi's, and his use of dark grout to accent tiles and bright colors brings a "storybook" quality to exterior walls...making buildings look 'friendly', approachable and magical. He also embedded colored glass block in patterns- making intriguing "windows" Fanciful, eclectic, and light-hearted, the buildings of Viennese architect Friendensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000) are obviously influenced by the works of Antoni Gaudí and some of the Jugendstil architects, but their presence is entirely unique. His irregular, seemingly accidental forms respond to what he saw as the severity and austerity in modern architecture, and he remained committed to building with such ecologically remedial techniques as the use of recycled concrete and rooftop green spaces. Among the buildings seen here is his exuberant Forest Spiral of the Darmstadt, a park-sited German apartment house that looks like a children's castle, shaped as a curved, ten-story ramp. [Each volume in this series of compact architectural monographs highlights the work of a renowned architect.] Largely visual, the books typically review some ten or twelve important structures in 150 color photographs and additional plans and details, with brief introductory essays in English, German, Italian, and French, and a chronology. Author Maria Sol Kliczkowski, ed. Publisher Te Neues Format hardcover, Illustrated ISBN 3823845357 Pages/Publication Date 80/2003 *Motorway Restaurant, Bad Fischau. built, 1989-1990 The WIGAST AG of Vienna, under Chairman of the Board Günther Wöss, resolved in 1986 to ask Hundertwasser to assume the task of redesigning the restaurant, which had been built in the seventies. The renovation was intended to attract more visitors and thus increase turnover. Before that, the WIGAST AG had negotiated with several other architects, whose designs, however, had entailed that the restaurant be torn down and a new one built. In contrast, Hundertwasser wanted to preserve the existing building fabric. |