Hundertwasser's comment on the work

The coal-rinsing facility is important for the people who see this building from far away, for it will be a castle, it will be a manifestation of people's romantic yearning. From far away they see trees which tower over the landscape at various levels, instead of a rectilinear skyline (...). In this regard I would like to demonstrate something else, namely that trees are also growing out of a vertical wall, for what is still terrorising us and what still makes us suffer is vertical lines (...). The window openings are designed (...) to be different by enlarging them or reducing their size or repositioning them or creating new openings for them. All of this in irregular forms. Then a spiral is to go around the house, which is also a symbol of creation and the organic cycle. (...) The trees on the roof should be of various species, i. e., not a monoculture. (...) A genuine ecological house is one which is engaged in a dialogue with nature and in harmony with nature, which is gentle and passive. Only a house with a forest can be this, a house in which nature can itself take hold, in which nature finds a home again, simultaneously with man.(excerpt from Hundertwasser's speech before the steering committee of the City of Hamm, spring, 1982, in: Das Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna, 1985, pp. 139-143)