Sunday, October 25, 2009

Apartment building = Cool? Interesting? This one is!!



Today we made a little trip up to Darmstadt to check out the Waldspirale (wooded spiral) building. It was designed by famous Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, supposedly on the back of a napkin! This very cool building is not a museum or other attraction, it is an apartment building. No two apartments, windows or doorknobs are alike. That's right...doorknobs!

This particular building features all of Hundertwasser's signature elements, most importantly the complete lack of straight lines, living trees as important parts of the building, and brightly colored ceramic tiles and columns appear at random throughout the structure. The Waldspirale is a U shaped building that slopes upwards like a ramp and the entire rooftop is planted with grass, trees and flowers.
His rationale for designing one of his buildings was so that nothing ugly would be built in that space.



I'm so glad that Bill discovered this very cool piece of architectural art so close to where we live.

I wanted to created a scrapbooking template freebie inspired by the Waldspirale, but as these projects usually do...it evolved into something else. Ah well...it is still a pretty cool template even though it does have straight lines and some right angles! Enjoy!



download here