Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Hundertwasser Wine

The NY Times just had an article on the Quixote Winery in Napa Valley which was one of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s last buildings he worked on. Hundertwasser was an eccentric Austrian artist turned building designer whose felt the mechanization of building was killing modern homes. His structures try to integrate the built form and nature more closely, including all of the messiness that comes along with complex natural systems. The grid was to be scorned, as were right angles and solid swathes of color. I had never known anything about him before, but I had seen pictures of his Hundertwasser House in Vienna, and I really enjoyed the integration of the plant material into the building with vines, trees, etc. high up from the ground. His “Forest Spiral” building in Darmstadt, Germany doesn’t intrigue me as much. The scale of the green space doesn’t feel as personal as the house in Vienna. Still, I like the idea that you could walk up the height of the entire building. That ground floor to roof green access is nice.


Hundertwasser House in Vienna

The "Forest Spiral" building in Darmstadt, Germany

No comments: