Hundertwasser

It has been a rainy couple of days here in Vienna. Yesterday I went out into the city to find this architectural gem.


I guess from the photo it just looks like a crazy paint job, but the entire building was strange. This apartment building is called Hundertwasser named after the artist who designed it. The outside of the building is all those different colors and was built apparently to try blend with nature; having one of the first green roofs, having trees grow from within the different rooms, and having all the floors be uneven, almost wavelike, to imitate a forest floor. All the apartments are still being rented by actual tenants so I didn't get to see inside, but across the way is a small "village" of shops that he designed in a similar fashion. Going inside this reminded me of a Tim Burton film. A few blocks away was the KunstHausWien museum which he also designed. In my opinion it would be odd to live across from that build and have to look at it all the time.


I think I've mentioned before about how Vienna lays claim to Mozart who did a lot of his composing here while living here for many years. There are some very popular chocolates that are found in store's called Mozart's Corner, Mozart's Place, etc... where tourists from all over go to get their sugar fix. I'm sure he would be proud.


And finally, I came to quite the realization last night as well on my way home. I decided to take the #2 tram around the main ring street of the inner city. I had concluded in my mind's eye of Vienna that it is a much larger city than it actually is, which I think is a result of my skew of city sizes because of LA's sprawl, the fact I was taking the metro everywhere so I don't really get a sense of things relationships to one another, and general lack of knowledge. This is not the case at all. Everything is quite close to everything else giving me reason to plan on running around the entire inner ring, which from the apartment I would estimate to be almost exactly 5 miles or so. Not bad. Obviously there is more spread to the city, but for all intensive purposes I don't plan on visiting much outside the inner city area.