Hundertwasser's comment on the work

In flat No. 4, staircase II, I have painted a mural that can be viewed as a gift to the tenant and as part of the flat. The story behind it: during construction, persons unknown painted some large letters on the wall. I asked that they be left there and bit by bit I turned them inton something precious and beautiful. Which is to say I overpainted the letters, producing windows, trees and golden onion domes.(written in Vienna, November 23, 1985)Beauty barriers, "non-regulated irregularities" and spontaneous vegetation should be tolerated. If, for example, vertical rain stains from rust or dirt particles enliven the façade or the walls get spots, it should be regarded as a beautiful and welcome improvement. A lot of vagrants had slept in the house, and anonymous "artists" scribbled and smeared things on the walls. Testimony of this non-authorised activity should be permitted to leave its traces behind in the house, too, just as there are swallows' or other birds' nests somewhere on the house, grass and trees grow in places where it was not planned. Monogrammes and palm prints the bricklayers made in the wet plaster should be left there, as should other embellishments, wherever anyone has added them. Tolerance of "non-regulated irregularities" is an important element of window rights. Sterile cleanliness, regulated conformity and monocultures of all kinds are not only the death of all life, but also a symptom of the decline of our civilisation.(from: Das Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna, 1985, p. 212)Since I live by the principle that "what comes about spontaneously may not be destroyed, because it is a gift which fills lethal sterility with life", I asked the tenants of the flats in question not to remove the scribblings (now referred to as vandalistic graffiti), and I would make a Hundertwasser out of them. Which I did, for nothing. But I was sure to get coffee and a piece of cake.(from: Hundertwasser 1928-2000, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 2, Taschen, Cologne, 2002, p. 1228)