It took just 2 years to construct Magdeburg’s Green Citadel (locally known as the Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg), which opened to the public on October 3, 2005. One cannot miss Friedensreich Hundertwassers’ “oasis for humanity and nature in a sea of rational houses” on the city’s Breiten Weg road.

Hundertwasser was born in Vienna on the 15th of December 1928. The artist, who began his career as a painter, ventured into architecture in the 1950s. He believed in the existence of a close relationship between architectural design and the wellbeing of those living within a building.

According to Friedensreich Hundertwasser, architecture is a human being’s ‘3rd skin’, and he believed that every human should be able to choose and configure it as they can fashion their 1st skin (natural skin) and their 2nd skin (clothing). Through his architectural projects and the “window right” and “tree obligation” concepts, he worked towards creating individual living spaces at one with nature. He considered the task of leading human beings back to the lost paradise central to an architect’s responsibility.

next