There is a lot of debate going on about the proposed Hundertwasser Arts Centre but, love it or hate it, there are two things of which I am certain: People will come specifically to see it and while they are here they will spend money.
Why am I certain people will come? Because, in addition to the fans of Hundertwasser - Google Hundertwasser and you get 2,930,00 results, Google Whangarei and you get 1,180,000 results, you do the maths - who will make a point of coming to see one of only two Hundertwasser designed buildings outside of Austria (The other being a public toilet just up the road that attracts 14,000 visitors a week in the summer), people who travel like to see things that are different.
Before we were married with children, my wife and I had an extended campervan tour around Eastern Europe and one of the places we visited was the town of Kecskemet in Hungary. We had read about the Cifra Palace. The Cifra Palace is considered one of the masterpieces of the Hungarian Szecesszio style, similar to Art Nouveau with additional ceramic elements, but what got our attention was the description in the guidebook that said the architecture was "like Hansel and Gretel on acid".
Consider this. While we were in Kecskemet we bought: Two nights' accommodation, a pair of sandals, some incense to help keep the night bugs away, visited some other attractions and went to the supermarket for groceries.
Almost a month later we were back after a bit of a look around the North and West of Romania. The reason we came back to Kecskemet was that we knew it had a large supermarket.
