Hundertwasserhaus

I don't know if I can describe how much I enjoyed this apartment building. During one of the most delightful days of my trip (and there were many), Elizabeth Bennett and I decided to wander around Vienna. She knows it well as she went to law school there, and I'd done the tourist thing there before. The only plan was to revisit the ever so beautiful Wagner Apartments and the market below them. Then we went to Cafe Central for a leisurely coffee and cake. And then we had blueberry ice cream and saw the full body of bones of a martyr under an alter in a Romanesque church (sort of propped up on his side beside a container of his blood). And of course St. Stephens. And the headquarters of the Vienna Secession movement. Bennett told me everything she knew about the history of architecture, particularly in Slovakia. We finished the day with the Hundertwasserhaus, which neither of us had ever seen, and which delighted both of us. Clearly Hundertwasser knew the history of architecture well and was just playing with all of it with a creation that's something like a playground for adults. Everything is disheveled, but perfectly so, with an incredible amount of attention to detail. For instance, when you look inside the fountain, there is a mosaic of a snake curled around inside the fountain, poking its head out a little bit. And in the double rounded arches, there is one column smaller than the others and tilted.