Waldspirale
Tuesday, 9th December 2008 by John Andresen
The Waldspirale, in Darmstadt, Germany, which at first glance from above may appear to be a park, is actually an apartment building that reaches twelve floors at its highest point.
The fascinating building was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian architect and painter, between 1998 and 2000. Unfortunately, he died shortly before it was completed. Going with Hundertwasser's personal style, the building contains Russian onion domes and few straight lines1. The roof of the building is a green roof, planted with beech, maple, and lime trees.
The building has 105 apartments, as well as a cafe and a bar at the top of the spiral. Uniquely, the building has over 1000 windows of which no two are the same.
Flickr has many ground level photos of the Waldspirale.
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According to Hundertwasser, straight lines are "the devil's tools." ↩︎
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I wonder what the cost would be of substituting one of those 1000 “unique” windows… I guess a glazier’s work wouldn’t be very cheap on custom-shaped windows.
For those who don’t speak german: “Waldspirale” translates as “forest helix”.
What a wonderful building! Wouldn’t you want to live there? Just fabulous.
it really is amazing!