This is an accepted version of this page Friedrich Stowasser (15 December 1928 – 19 February 2000), better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (German: [ˈfʁiːdn̩sʁaɪx ˈʁeːɡn̩taːk ˈdʊŋkl̩bʊnt ˈhʊndɐtˌvasɐ]), was an Austrian visual artist[1] and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection.

Hundertwasser stood out as an opponent of "a straight line" and any standardization, expressing this concept in the field of building design.

His best known work is the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, which has become a notable place of interest in the Austrian capital, characterised by imaginative vitality and uniqueness.

He also designed stamps for Cape Verde and for the United Nations postal administration in Geneva on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[7][8] In the 1970s, Hundertwasser acquired several properties in the Bay of Islands in the far northern Te Tai Tokerau region of New Zealand, which include a total area of approximately 372 ha of the entire Kaurinui valley.

[9][10] In 1980, Hundertwasser visited Washington D.C. to support activist Ralph Nader's efforts to oppose nuclear proliferation.

[11] Hundertwasser planted trees in Judiciary Square and advocated on behalf of a co-op apartment owner who was taken to court for installing a bay window.

[13] Hundertwasser's original and unruly artistic vision expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy, and design of facades, postage stamps, flags, and clothing (among other areas).

The common themes in his work utilised bright colours, organic forms, a reconciliation of humans with nature, and a strong individualism, rejecting straight lines.

He remains sui generis, although his architectural work is comparable to Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in its use of biomorphic forms and the use of tile.

His lecture "Loose from Loos, A Law Permitting Individual Buildings Alterations or Architecture-Boycott Manifesto", was given at the Concordia Press Club in Vienna in 1968.

"[14] In his nude speeches of 1967 and 1968 Hundertwasser condemned the enslavement of humans by the sterile grid system of conventional architecture and by the output of mechanised industrial production.

[19] For Hundertwasser, human misery was a result of the rational, sterile, monotonous architecture, built following the tradition of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos, author of the modernist manifesto Ornament and crime (1908).

He called for a boycott of this type of architecture, and demanded instead creative freedom of building, and the right to create individual structures.

[citation needed] The models for the Eurovision TV-show "Wünsch Dir was" (Make a Wish) in 1972 exemplified his ideas on forested roofs, tree tenants and the window right.

[citation needed] In architectural projects that followed he implemented window right and tree tenants, uneven floors, woods on the roof, and spontaneous vegetation.

[citation needed] Works of this period include: housing complexes in Germany; a church in Bärnbach, Austria; a district heating plant in Vienna; an incineration plant and sludge centre in Osaka, Japan; a railway station in Uelzen; a winery in Napa Valley; and the Hundertwasser toilet in Kawakawa, New Zealand.

Although he never completed this work, the building was built a few years later in Magdeburg, a town in eastern Germany, and opened on 3 October 2005.

On the basis of these adaptations have been stamps issued by: The Austrian post office used more Hundertwasser motives for the European edition 1987 (Modern architecture, Hundertwasser House), on the occasion of his death in 2000 (painting Blue Blues, under the WIPA 2000) and 2004 National Donauauen (poster: The outdoors is our freedom at civil protests in Hainburg).

For the first time a Hundertwasser motive was also used on a Cuban stamp, as part of the art exhibition Salon de Mayo (Havana, 1967).

[33] In 1959 Hundertwasser got involved with helping the Dalai Lama escape from Tibet by campaigning for the Tibetan religious leader in Carl Laszlo's magazine Panderma.

In later years, when he was already a known artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser became an environmental activist and most recently operated as a more prominent opponent of the European Union, advocating the preservation of regional peculiarities.