The Bay Islands in the subtropical north of New Zealand is glorious, an iridescent inlet strewn with more than 100 lush green islands of all shapes and sizes. Its hinterland townships are dull country cousins in comparison, lacking any gloss and sparkle, except for one: Kawakawa and its public loos, completed in 1999, one of the country’s architectural marvels. You can’t miss them. They leap out across the footpath in the main street, standing in stark contrast to the conventional buildings and commercial frontages. It is an extraordinary structure, all the more so when viewed alongside its sober neighbours, and the exuberance and joy of its materials and colours seem particularly suited to the Winterless North. Sometimes it takes an outsider to really see a place’s charms and possibilities where locals just can’t.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser was one such visitor to Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand) who fell in love with the country and made it his home. The Austrian already had an established reputation as an artist, and a very successful one, when he emigrated in the 1970s. His brilliantly vibrant images combined a variety of media, and his prints were popular too. His delight in colour didn’t lead him entirely in the direction of abstraction though; his works remain figurative, but the way he represents reality is – and I mean this in the best possible way – childlike. His art seems to be that of an innocent, open-eyed with a sense of joy and wonder in the everyday; landscapes, trees, gardens, towns and houses are all very apparent in his images, although transformed through kaleidoscopic fragmentation of surfaces and forms, dizzying concentric circles and giddy spirals. It is no surprise, perhaps, that he stepped into the arena of architecture, designing more buildings than you might imagine, albeit many were only realised posthumously.
Characteristically, Hundertwasser had sailed to New Zealand on his boat Regentag (Rainy Day) via Tahiti and the Galapagos in order to survey the installation of a large exhibition touring the country and Australia. I was given a copy of the catalogue, a small black book, the interior of which opened up a world of possibilities to this young schoolboy; full of colour, light and energy, all made more vivid by the fact it was contemporary, unlike the long-dead artists in the books of my provincial school. Hundertwasser was so taken with Aotearoa that in 1975 he bought land in the Bay of Islands and built a home there: a series of structures set in the contours of a former farm he was planting with native trees and shrubs to return it to wood- and wetland. Up until then he had lived on his boat for several years, part of the appeal surely having been that vessels are predominantly curved – one of his architectural aphorisms was ‘the straight line leads to hell’.
Like all his designs, the Kawakawa loos possess little rectilinearity, nor much in the way of modern materials. It is technically a renovation of an existing building, not that you would know it. The structure springs up to form twin barrel vaults and a green roof (the artist decreed that any plants removed from the site be relocated there). Rather than align with the street’s boundary, it surges forward over the footpath, unlike the reticent character of most public facilities, and creates a welcome shelter. The floor is nothing like level; it undulates as earth itself does. The walls are an assemblage of adobe, recycled brick, individualised ceramic columns, bottles and tiles, mostly broken and tessellated in the manner of the great Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudí. Hundertwasser was the designer and guiding hand, but he encouraged those involved in the construction to express themselves in what they did. The experienced eye can detect a few patches where this new freedom at first resulted in some over-the-top crazy-paving, but workers soon settled into a rhythm and the loos have a synergy that’s rare in a work that is as much community-built as architect-designed. Hundertwasser revelled in moments of serendipity, in idiosyncrasy rather than the firm hand and adherence to rules characteristic of most modern architecture.
Many people might consider his background to be hippie, but he was also a pioneer of Postmodernism, the movement that broke free from the strictures of an exhausted postwar Modernism and instead indulged in freedom and fun. But unlike most of his peers, Hundertwasser wasn’t playing witty or perverse games. He believed in an organic architecture that was more connected with the natural world and in shaping our relationship with it. And in that he was part of a counter-cultural, back-to-nature zeitgeist that has since become mainstream as we have collectively become concerned with sustainability, recycling and living far simpler lives.
The Kawakawa loos are a popular attraction and not just because, on a purely practical level, they’re a welcome sight for tourists who have made the long journey north to the Bay of Islands by coach. But be warned: people loiter and take photographs here, captivated by an exuberant and voluptuous interior so different from the clinical austerity of most sanitary facilities. Friedensreich Hundertwasser died in 2000, shortly after the building – the last that he oversaw – was completed. He was, says Joost de Bruin, the director of the new Hundertwasser Art Centre, ‘absolutely delighted when finally one of his ideas to contribute to New Zealand art and archi- tecture was accepted’.
Death hasn’t stilled his output, however. The Vienna-based Hundertwasser Foundation oversees new buildings based on his sketches and visions. Apart from the loos, Kawakawa also has a relatively new Te Hononga Hundertwasser Memorial Park incorporating a library, visitor centre, café and, yes, public conveniences. And an hour or two south, in the city of Whangārei, you will find the aforementioned art centre, based on a conceptual design of his, incorporating exhibitions of his work and a gallery devoted to contemporary Māori art. His own home, set in revitalised native bushland, in which he is buried and happily composting, is set to open to the public soon. But for my money the loos are the best of his New Zealand work. And, what’s more, you don’t need to spend a penny to visit them.
A version of this article also appears in the May 2025 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers. Sign up for our weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive interiors stories like this one, direct to your inbox.
