Hundertwasser's comment on the work

The Role of KunstHausWien
 
The KunstHausWien is fully aware of its role in the heart of Europe, and in an effort similar to that of the Vienna Secession some 100 years ago, strives for a renewal of relationship in harmony with the creativity of nature and man.
 
Art must meet its purpose.
Art must show its colours.
Does art support or fight creation?
Is art for or against man?
 
Art must meet man's and nature's pace.
Art must respect nature and the laws of nature.
Art must respect man and man's inspiration for true and durable values.
Art must again be a bridge between the creativity of nature and the creativity of man.
Art must regain its universal function for all and not be just a fashionable business for insiders.
 
The KunstHausWien is a bastion against the dictatorship of the straight line, the ruler and T-square, a bridgehead against the grid system and the chaos of the absurd.
 
The KunstHausWien stands up for an art and an architecture in harmony with creation that mankind has been waiting and longing for.
Art must free itself from the ties of guided intellectual tutorship.
Art should not suffer speculation and cultural industrialization.
 
Art should not endure dogmatic enslavement through negative theories.
 
Europe's and the world's liberation from oppressive dictatorships has to be followed by a liberation of creation in all its aspects from a worldwide oppression by a political cultural dictatorship still in power.

 
In quest for a new orientation in the light of the rising awareness of a changed relationship between man and nature we are convinced of the mission of art at the threshold into the new millennium.
 
Art must have a purpose.
Art must create lasting values.
The courage to strive for beauty in harmony with nature.
The task of KunstHausWien is to achieve these goals.
 
 
Hundertwasser, October 1990
 

ARCH 68
913

Rebuilding and alterations to turn the former Thonet furniture factory, built in 1892, into a museum with a café-restaurant and a museum shop


Total area: c. 4.000 m2
Exhibition area: c. 1.400 m2
Model 1:20: Alfred Schmid, 1989
Start of construction: 1989
Inauguration: April 9, 1991

1989 - 1991
Untere Weißgerberstraße 13, 1030 Wien / Vienna, Österreich / Austria
Peter Pelikan

Suitable premises for a permanent exhibition of Hundertwasser's painting were found in the third district of Vienna, the building of the former furniture factory of the Thonet Brothers, built in 1892. The size of the building made it possible, not only to establish the Hundertwasser museum, but also to include space for alternating exhibitions of international stature in the planning.
The reconstruction, which involved integrating two buildings, was carried out from 1989 to 1991, with the Bank for Labour and Business (BAWAG) under its General Director Walter Flöttl, acting as building sponsor.Hundertwasser was careful to leave the old buildings substance untouched as far as possible. Towards the street, a porch was added whose windows provide additional light to the exhibition spaces; on the courtyard side a stairwell was added.

On April 9, 1991 KunstHausWien was officially opened; it was managed as a private enterprise, without any public funding or tax payers money from 1991 to 2008. Since 2008 KunstHausWien is one of four museums of Wien Holding.

The total space comes to about 4,000 sqm. On the ground floor there are the museum shop and a café-restaurant, apart from the cashier's and coat-check spaces.
On the first two upper floors a cross-section of Hundertwasser's oeuvre is on display, including painting, original graphics, tapestries and architectural models. The third and fourth floors are reserved for the international museum exhibitions.

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