Form vs. function

The possible closure of the famed Freidensreich Hundertwasser-designed public toilets at Kawakawa earned a detailed write-up in the Independent. Officially opened in 1999, the stunning facilities were the final project by the acclaimed Austrian post-modernist architect, who was a NZ resident from the early 1970s to his death in 2000. Due to the stench caused by large numbers of visitors to the toilets, the Kawakawa community board has proposed turning them into a non-functioning art work. The international Hundertwasser Foundation calls the idea “a betrayal to Hundertwasser and his legacy to Kawakawa.” Hundertwasser’s former assistant, Richard Smart, agrees: “He was saying you can take the simplest, most boring, most ugly building and make it into something beautiful.”