Located about 10 minutes’ walk from the Hundertwasserhaus (see previous post) is the KunstHausWien museum. It was created through the renovation of the 1892 building which housed the Thonet bentwood furniture factory in a style commensurate with Hundertwasser’s art.
Opened in 1991, KunstHausWien houses a permanent exhibition of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s work on two floors and two additional floors are devoted to changing exhibitions.
Irregular elements of glass, metal, bricks, wood and ceramic tiles in many colors give a unique character to the formerly inconspicuous building.
The shop floor was uneven – while interesting, it can be dangerous especially it is a slope located right at the entrance.
His architectural work is comparable to Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in its use of organic forms and the use of tile. We read somewhere that most of Hundertwasser’s tiles are symmetrical while Gaudi’s tiles are all irregularly shaped. Judging by the photo below, the tiles on KunstHausWien are mostly squares of different sizes arranged in patches and oriented at various angles.
Well, I just found in the photos we took in Barcelona last year, a picture of one of Gaudi’s buildings in Park Güell. All the tiles, background and foreground, are irregularly shaped.
Back to the KunstHausWien.
This must be one of the more artful sign for toilets we have seen. Look at what the boy is doing. There is a “puddle” of mirror tiles on the ground by the door.
By the time we got to KunsthHausWien, we were tired and hungry – so we skipped the exhibition, checked the shop and ate lunch at the cafeteria. Now you know our priorities. This is the indoor cafeteria.
We preferred to sit outside in the garden, where we can see how the vegetation merges with or emerges from the building.
As it was way past lunch time, the place was pretty empty.
And because it was after regular lunch time, they served a limited menu – but we were happy with a typical local dish.
