THE THIRD SKIN

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Man is surrounded by three layers, his skin, his clothing and walls, the building.

Clothing and the walls of buildings have in recent times undergone a development which is no longer in keeping with the individual\\\'s natural requirements.

Windows are the bridge between inside and outside. The third skin is interspersed with windows as the first one is with pores.

The windows are an equivalent of the eyes.

The facade is not perfectly straight and flat, but humpy and interrupted by irregular mosaics.

What we urgently need is barriers of beauty; these beauty impediments consist of uncontrolled irregula­rities.

Paradises can only be made with our own hands, with our own creativity in harmony with the free creativi­ty of nature.

Hundertwasser, 1991


The outer walls of our modern buildings are our prison walls, for they are anonymous, without emotions, aggressive, heartless, cold and yawningly empty. These are the freedom-depriving characteristics of prison walls. Behind anonymous walls, concentration-camp inmates with no window rights are lodged.

In a house, an individually different, organic design of the outer wall of each individual apartment is of fundamental significance, so that the resident can identify with his house from outside.

My irregular outside design of the apartments is not protected as an historic monument, but is to be looked on as a precursor to the window right of every individual.

Hundertwasser, 1985