Living Treasures - Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1990

In this documentary, Austrian/Kiwi artist and designer Friedensreich (Friedrich) Hundertwasser talks to Ian Fraser about his philosophies and ecological approach to painting and architecture. Hundertwasser fell in love with Northland, where he lived and worked for the last 30 years of his life. He is best-known for the koru flag, an alternative New Zealand flag resembling an uncurling fern frond — and his idiosyncratic redesign of a public toilet block in Kawakawa in 1999, which attracts thousands of international tourists to the town each year.

The thing is to make a more happy environment for everybody, for grown-ups and for children; where it is fun to live in, where people feel more at ease, more at home, more in a fairy tale, just like dreaming...
– Friedensreich Hundertwasser on his approach to architecture