Kawakawa's Hundertwasser toilets could soon join the ranks of New Zealand’s most significant buildings as a Category 1 Historic Place.
Kawakawa's Hundertwasser toilets could soon join the ranks of New Zealand’s most significant buildings as a Category 1 Historic Place.
A public toilet block in small-town Northland could soon join Christchurch Cathedral, the War Memorial Museum in Auckland and Dunedin’s Lanarch Castle on a register of the nation’s most historically significant buildings.
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga has proposed declaring Kawakawa’s famous Hundertwasser toilets a Category 1 Historic Place — the highest status and protection available for a historic building in Aotearoa.
Research by the organisation’s Northland manager, Bill Edwards, has found the mastermind behind the colourful conveniences, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, was an internationally renowned artist and architect with buildings around the globe, including in Europe, North America, Japan and New Zealand.
However, the Hundertwasser toilet block was the only public building in New Zealand he had direct involvement with during his lifetime, which made it unique. The artist’s other New Zealand buildings were built after his death.
Edwards’ findings that the toilets have national — and international — significance will surprise exactly no one in Kawakawa.
Kawakawa arts advocate Lau’rell Pratt said the Kawakawa Hundertwasser Memorial Park Trust and the Hundertwasser toilet kaitiaki [guardians] had lobbied long and hard for better protection and preservation of the iconic loos.
“It’s well deserved. Everyone locally knows how amazing they are. We love showing the creative side of our town and not being defined by what other people think of us, and that includes our toilets,” Pratt said.
Edwards said the toilet block was built in 1969 as a utilitarian, concrete-block structure with little artistic merit.
The idea of transforming it into an object of beauty in harmony with nature, while contributing to the community in which he lived, appealed to Hundertwasser.
The revamped toilets were completed in 1999, with Austrian-born Hundertwasser, who spent much of the latter part of his life in nearby Kaurinui Valley, overseeing the work and enlisting the help of community members and students from Bay of Islands College.
The building made use of recycled materials such as old bottles and bricks, brightly coloured glazed tiles, a roof garden and few straight lines.
Supervisor Richard Smart applies the finishing touches to Kawakawa's Hundertwasser toilets in 1999. Photo / Ross White
Edwards described the toilets, which have a reported 1 million visits per year, as “quirky, colourful, undulating and playful”.
“The economic and social impact of the building has greatly contributed to the wealth of the community, not only in dollars, but to an artistic vision that is apparent when you look at other buildings in the town,” he said.
His toilets are credited with helping to turn around the fortunes of the once-depressed town and making it a must-see on Northland’s tourist trail.
Other buildings followed after Hundertwasser’s death in 2000, some designed by him (such as Whangārei’s Hundertwasser Arts Centre) and others inspired by his philosophy and aesthetic (such as Kawakawa’s Te Hononga library and civic hub).
As part of the statutory process around listing heritage buildings, Northlanders are invited to write submissions supporting or opposing the proposal.
They may also raise issues they believe need to be considered or suggest changes to the report. Submissions close on May 16.
■ Go to www.heritage.org.nz/places/nominate-and-submit#hundertwasserpublictoilets to read the report or make a submission. Other public toilets on the Heritage List include the “Taj Mahal” public toilets in central Wellington, the Edwardian bus shelter and toilets next to Auckland’s Grafton Bridge and the World War I memorial women’s restroom in Napier.
