Author Archives: Andrea Fürst

We are again living through a turning point when old and petrified values in architecture and town planning are increasingly being called into question. The straight lines and uniformity of Bauhaus architecture are coming to an end because they are unfeeling, sterile, cold, heartless, aggressive and unemotional. The era of absolute rationalism is coming to an end. The new values are a higher quality rather than a higher standard of living, yearning for romanticism, individuality, creativity, especially creativity and a life in harmony with nature.

Man has three skins. His own, his clothes and his dwelling. All these three skins must renew themselves, continually grow and change.

Houses are growing things like trees. Houses grow like plants, live and continually change.

Current architecture is criminally sterile since unfortunately every building process stops when the people move into their quarters though normally the reorganization of the living space should only begin when people have moved in.

We suffocate in our cities through poison and lack of oxygen. We destroy systematically the vegetation which gives us life and lets us breathe. We walk alongside grey and sterile facades of houses.

It is our duty to reinstall the rights of nature with all means.

The tree tenant symbolizes a turn in human history because he regains his rank as an important partner of man.

We must build houses where nature is above us. It is our duty to put nature, which we destroy by building the house, back on the roof.

We must restore all territories, which we illegally took from nature. Free nature must grow where snow falls in winter. All that is white in winter must be green in summer.

The horizontal belongs to nature.

Woods shall grow on streets and roofs. One must again be able to breathe woodland air in the cities.

The relationship between men and trees must gain a religious dimension.

Then one will understand that it is true if we say:

The straight line is godless and immoral.

Art is worship, a place of edification, of peace, a place where one receives profound help for the soul, where one again finds the right way that has been lost.

Art must be precious, it must create values, not destroy them. One should feel protected with art as if you were really at home.

Art must be beautiful, true and positive.

Art must return to simplicity in our more and more complicated world.

The task of an artist is to preserve this world right now, to correct what has been done wrong, to beautify what has been made ugly and to warn with all his artistic and visionary powers.

Artists are people who assume responsibility without being asked. By artists all of us are meant who dare to act creatively. To be creative means to be free and to realise oneself in harmony with the laws of nature.

Art means living responsibly. The artist has an obligation to the society he lives in to warn and to look for solutions.

Only he who acts in accordance with the laws of plants and vegegation cannot go wrong. Only beauty in its superior function can show us the way.

Art must once again show its true colours.

Art must once again turn to mankind.

Does art support or fight Creation? Is art for or against mankind?

Art must once again respect nature and its laws, man and his aspiration for true and durable values.

Art must once again be a bridge between the creativity of nature and the creatitivity of man.

Art must once again take its universal function for all and not be just a fashionable business for insiders.

Art must free itself from the ties of guided intellectual tutorship, which is always keeping up with fashion, speculation and the art industry, from the self-appointed art experts and art consultants.

The liberation of Europe and the world from politically oppressive dictatorships must also be followed by a liberation of creation in all its aspects from a worldwide unnatural oppression by a cultural dictatorship which still holds sway.

In quest for the foundation of a new orientation in the light of the rising awareness of a changed relationship between man and nature and creation I am convinced of the mission of art at the threshold into the new millennium.

Art must have a purpose.

Art must create lasting values.

The courage to beauty in harmony with nature.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser Regentag Dunkelbunt, 1998