The toilets of Kawakawa
March 6th, 2008 by Thomas Maresca
Thousands of visitors a year are stopping in the small Northland town of Kawakawa to go the toilet.
These are no ordinary toilets, you see. They are art-toilets, a colorful pastiche of mosaic tiles, ceramic columns, and colored glass bottles, with a living tree growing on the structure’s roof. The project was designed by renowned and controversial Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and it’s turned Kawakawa from a drive-by on the way to the Bay of Islands to a stopping point for the curious and the art aficionado alike; when I dropped in, I met an Austrian couple who had made the restroom a major reason for their visit to New Zealand. (Of course, the toilets also very capably serve a more prosaic purpose.)
Hundertwasser adopted Kawakawa as his home in the 70s and for years offered to design buildings, postage stamps, and flags for New Zealand, but the toilets are the only project that he was ever able to complete here. They opened in 1999, a year before his death.
The toilets may not be alone for much longer, however. Whangarei, another Northland town that has traditionally been bypassed by tourists, has just announced plans to open a $9.5 million Hundertwasser art centre, based on the late artist’s designs.
4 Responses to “The toilets of Kawakawa”
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November 13th, 2008 at 11:54 am
this artist has some good work
August 25th, 2009 at 1:11 am
one of a kind
November 19th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
weird untrual very creepy a (famouse toilet i mean realy thousends of people drop off to see a toilet what a bowl of rubbish balls i rather wach my own toilet than look at this hundertwasser may you not rest in peace!! DONKEY BALLS 8==D
November 30th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Visited here with my daughter last month and was blown away. We have always admired his work and just had to go to Kawakawa when we visited from the UK. Wonderful!