Since we were going to be as close as Prague, Art Boy also wanted to visit Vienna. His main objective was to make a pilgrimage to Kunst Haus Wien, the museum devoted to 20th Century artist/designer/architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
This was a man who abhored the straight line. His museum (along with the residential apartment building he designed a few blocks away) is a riot of opposing colors, organic shapes, patterned tiles and mosaics, sloping floors, mismatched windows, and sudden bursts of greenery (including trees and shrubbery planted on the roof).
In the gallery rooms upstairs (walls painted deep blue, hunter green, cinnamon, steel grey, anything but boring "gallery white"), we saw the incredibly subtle to vivid coloration and craftsmanship of Hundertwasser's "mixed media" originals (watercolor, pen, ink, gouache, gold and silver leaf, and who knows what else). Ideas and images cascade, execution is playful and passionate, and we were simply staggered by the power of the work in real life.
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| Art Boy in Heaven: Kunst Haus Wien |
We strolled for about half an hour in a light drizzle along the south bank of the Danube Canal to get to the Hundertwasser museum, which is located a few blocks east of Vienna's central Innere Stadt (Inner City) section. (You could probably get there by tram in about ten minutes). But it was so worth it!
We also had a light lunch at the museum cafe and goggled at the extravagantly tiled bathrooms. At the end, we visited the gift shop, although all I bought was the postcard above. This wasn't about collecting souvenirs from Hundertwasser-Land. It was about diving into the experience and coming away awed!
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