The structure was completed in 1999 and named after the architect and visual artist Friedensreich
Hundertwasser, who conceived and designed the project.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist and designer whose passion for spirals and
arabesque lines was largely inspired by Viennese Secessionists like Gustav Klimt.

Born Friedensreich Stowasser on December 15, 1928 in Vienna, Austria. After WWII, Friedensreich
briefly enrolled in the Vienna Academy of Art before dropping out to travel extensively
throughout Europe and Asia. As a designer in the 1950s, he undertook several large-scale
architectural projects, including his famed Hundertwasserhaus.

In the early 1970s, Hundertwasser purchased several properties in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand
where he would live out the remainder of his life.

Here he realized his dream of living and working closely connected to nature. Beside other projects
he designed the "Bottle House" there. He could live largely self-sufficiently using solar panels,
a water wheel and a biological water purification plant. His first grass roof experiments
took place there.

Passing away on February 19, 2000 while aboard the Queen Elizabeth II on a voyage from New Zealand
to Europe. He was buried in New Zealand.