Public spaces aren't often like this: Hundertwasser Arts Centre, Whangarei Town Basin. Photo / Tania Whyte
Public spaces aren't often like this: Hundertwasser Arts Centre, Whangarei Town Basin. Photo / Tania Whyte
By most reasonable standards, the Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei makes no sense at all.
The first thing you see as you approach the building is its gleaming golden dome standing out amid the trees on its own rooftop and against the otherwise classically drab skyline of a provincial Kiwi city. Get nearer and you'll see the lines of the building are all wobbly and askew, its walls dotted with scrawls of mosaic pieces in flowing patterns. Inside, walking the spiral staircase that leads to the rooftop trees, you'll see the edges of the stairs have a gently uneven undulation. Public spaces in New Zealand aren't usually like this.
The Whangārei gallery's path from concept to opening day made little sense, either. Not-particularly wealthy local councils dipped into their pockets to fund the development of an architectural oddity devoted to the thinking of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian artist with strong views on composting your own poop and drawing squiggly lines for walls. Enthusiastic locals carried the torch – and the burden of fundraising – for the project in the face of some classic, straight-browed Kiwi grumbling.
The new art centre is a Hundert-miles away from what you'd expect in Whangarei. Photo / Zoe Aldworth
And yet here it stands, making perfect sense. The Hundertwasser Art Centre's golden dome gleams; the uneven lines make for a warm, relatable space, with every nook different from the last and no two surfaces alike. A neatly curated gallery showcases Hundertwasser's artworks, ecological polemics and architectural philosophies. Conservation-themed posters and architecture designed to make people live with their environments, rather than despite them, illustrate how far this bloke was ahead of his time.
"The straight line leads to the downfall of our civilisation," is one of his memorable lines, and so the design of this building takes an ambling path. When you walk through – or, indeed, on – the building, you're wandering into a showcase of Hundertwasser's design principles. I was a little disappointed to find there's no composting toilet for public use.
It was toilets that put Hundertwasser on the local map. A visit to the public loos in Kawakawa that bear his name has long been a must for anyone passing through his adopted hometown – it certainly beats a "McPee with Lies" in Kaikohe, or a hasty dash behind a roadside hedge.
Hundertwasser – who lies buried beneath a tree on his Kawakawa property – set plenty of deep roots in the area, with enough locals enamoured by the bloke to bring this remarkable building to life two decades after his death. It's home to the only permanent collection of his works outside of Vienna, with about $16 million worth of his work inside, and also hosts the Wairau gallery, a space dedicated solely to contemporary Māori art. Wairau is on the ground floor, near the entrance, and most visitors will take a look at the first-rate pieces before moving upstairs to the main gallery featuring the Austrian's work.
Biographical displays and black-and-white photos of Hundertwasser, bedecked in a classic bush shirt, share the story of the man alongside his works.
In big cities, people are awakening to the possibilities of rooftop spaces – bars, gardens or simply shared sunny areas. In this, again, the Austrian was ahead of his time: "Grass and vegetation in the city should grow on all horizontal spaces – that is to say, wherever rain and snow falls vegetation should grow, on the roads and on the roofs."
By reasonable standards, Hundertwasser in Whangārei makes no sense at all. Photo / Zoe Aldworth
The rooftop garden on the Hundertwasser seems mannered in its layout, perhaps someday it'll be open to the non-paying public, perhaps home to a small cafe and a wee destination in its own right. Standing in the turret beneath the gleaming dome, you get a real sense of how beautiful Whangārei is – the northern jewel wraps around its harbour with forested hills looking down. The Hundertwasser helps us see that. Earlier presumptions about the drab skyline of a provincial Kiwi city are left behind on our curving path.
The Hundertwasser stands like a piece of Antoni Gaudi's Barcelona transplanted to northern Aotearoa. On the sunny Sunday we visited, the art centre was the centrepiece of a beautifully revitalised harbourfront – kids, playgrounds, cafes, families, walkers, joggers, the works. Granted, it's a small stretch of shoreline, but Auckland could take notes from Whangārei on how to humanise your waterfront.
Whangārei – for so long a place you either live in or pass through – now has a gleaming reason to visit. Next time, we might even take a look at the clock museum next door. The people who worked so hard to get this brilliant building over the (non-straight) line deserve to be applauded.
