Street for Survivors

Born as Friedrich Stowasser on December 15, 1928, in Vienna, Austria, but better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, Friedensreich Hundertwasser was a visionary artist, innovative architect, and committed environmentalist. Hundertwasser was born to a Jewish mother and Catholic father during the rise of the Third Reich and expansion of Nazi Germany. During the war, Hundertwasser and his mother pretended to be Christian and Hundertwasser joined the Hitler Youth in order to avoid persecution. He possessed an interest in art from an early age, with a Montessori school report from 1936 referencing his “unusual sense of color and form.” Following the war, in which more than sixty-nine of his Jewish relatives were killed, Hundertwasser spent three months in 1948 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. That same year, in a speech he made at Leopoldskron Castle in Salzburg, Hundertwasser emphasized that “everybody must be creative,” a principle that he carried throughout his career.

In 1949, he first started going by the pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser instead of Friedrich Stowasser. His new name meant “Peace-Realm” “Rainy day” “Darkly multi-colored” “Hundred-Water.” This time was also when Hundertwasser began to develop his own unique, increasingly abstract style, which involved bright, contrasting colors; organic forms; harmony between humans and nature; and a strong sense of individuality. As his style developed, Hundertwasser became enraptured by the spiral form and utterly opposed to the straight line, which he said would “lead to the downfall of humanity.” In 1954, he coined the term “transautomatism” to describe his theory of art, which privileges the innate creativity and interpretation of the viewer over the intention of the artist. Hundertwasser said: “The ‘viewer’ can no longer remain an impartial referee standing outside, because the title of the work is no longer existent, and especially because the viewer himself has become creative.” As such, this theory harkens back to his earlier statement that “everybody must be creative.” Transautomatism also encompasses Hundertwasser’s theory that straight lines are “godless and immoral.” His emphasis on the fluidity of lines carried from his visual art to his architectural practice, and functioned in both as an attempt to call humans back to a more organic, natural relationship with nature instead of the regimented, forced existence of modern experience. In art, lines limited creative potential, and in life, regimentation and artificiality limited creativity and individuality in the human experience. For Hundertwasser, well-being meant a return to color and a return to nature. His treatise against rationalism in architecture furthers his beliefs regarding freedom and creativity in art. He claims that until everyone is free to practice architecture, it cannot be considered an art form. Furthermore, existing functional architecture oppresses man’s soul, confining humans in cubical structures that are “alien to human nature.”

These concerns about oppression and confinement clearly reflect Hundertwasser’s upbringing under the Third Reich. The highly ordered and controlled Nazi Germany combined with Hundertwasser’s childhood interest in creativity and nature to result in a strong rejection of order and mechanization, which he expressed by condemning the straight line and encouraging freedom and nature in art and architecture. The influence of the war is best exemplified in his following quote from 1990:

“Europe's and the world's liberation from oppressive dictatorships has to be followed by a liberation of creation in all its aspects from a worldwide oppression by a political cultural dictatorship still in power.”

In the early 1970s, Hundertwasser began a series of vibrant graphic prints that reflected his beliefs on organic architecture, harmony with the environment, and the freedom and creativity of the human spirit. Street for Survivors is part of this series; it shows eight houses on a boulevard, bordered by rows of repeating pentagonal houses. The survivors from the title are those that survived the slow erosion of aesthetic and psychological creativity by refusing to trade creative freedom for sterility. This print illustrates Hundertwasser’s views regarding the importance of creativity and individuality in the midst of regimented, grid-like cities. Hundertwasser also tied these principles to spirituality and well-being. He explained this relationship when he wrote that:

“The relationship between man and trees must gain a religious dimension and replace the adoration of Christ or God. Only when a divine adoration of all vegetation takes hold, a gradual improvement of the environment can begin from the inside of people. Then, there will also be a better understanding of the phrase: THE STRAIGHT LINE IS GODLESS.”

Hundertwasser truly believed that spiritual well-being could not be achieved until humans and nature live together freely and in harmony. Street for Survivors demonstrates the alternative to this environmental vision, in which only a minority of people possess the awareness of creativity and nature’s vitality in nurturing their souls. The linear street and regimented buildings encroach on the organic world in the background, demonstrating the threat that humans pose to their own well-being and that of nature.

For More Information about Hundertwasser:

https://hundertwasser.com/en

https://www.kunsthauswien.com/en/about-us/kunst-haus-wien/history-architecture/

https://hundertwasser.com/en/ecology

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