The Waldspirale is a residential building
complex in Darmstadt, Germany, built in the 1990s. The name translates into
English as forest spiral, reflecting both the general plan of the building and
the fact that it has a green roof. EXIN Magazines brings for you the details of
one of the most intriguing architectural landmarks in the world —
Waldspirale.
Designed
by Austrian artist Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, known
primarily for his flamboyant art, this residential complex in Germany is designed
with the expressed aim of avoiding straight lines.
Waldspirale
was planned and implemented by architect Heinz M. Springmann, and constructed
by the Bauverein Darmstadt company. The building was completed in 2000.
The
Waldspirale (forest spiral) houses as many trees as people with a large variety
of species including beech on the roof. No two windows are the same and
Hundertwasser even tiled some of the bathrooms himself.
The
Waldspirale apartment building is located in Darmstadt’s Burgerparkviertel. It
contains 105 apartments and a parking garage. In the past, the topmost part of
the building has had restaurants, cafes and bars for people to visit.
Currently, there are no open amenities for visitors. The inner courtyard
contains a playground for the children of the residents and a small artificial
lake. Peculiarities of the U-shaped building are the unique facade, which does
not follow a regular grid organization, and the windows, which appear as if
they were ‘aus der Reihe tanzen’ (dancing out of line) everywhere and
appearing out of order, often with tree tenants. The diagonal roof, planted
with grass, shrubs, flowers and trees, rises like a ramp along the U-form. At
its highest point, the building has 12 floors.
The
windows of the Waldspirale, which number over 1000, are all unique: no two
windows are the same. Similarly, different handles are attached in each
apartment to the doors and windows. Some of the apartments are decorated in
Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s personal style and exhibit the colourful tiles in
the bath and kitchen that are characteristic of his work. Furthermore, all the
corners are rounded off in these apartments along the roof and walls in an
application of Hundertwasser’s dogma “gegen die
gerade Linie” meaning ‘against the straight line’. For cost reasons, only a few
of the apartments’ interiors were designed individually.
From
the outside, the typical elements of Hundertwasser’s personal style attract
attention: the gilded onion domes the absence of straight lines and sharp
corners, the multi-coloured painting of the building in earth tones and the
colourful ceramic columns.
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