Whangārei's Hundertwasser Art Centre has been in the making for nearly 30 years and will finally open to visitors on Sunday.
The colourful, zany exterior of the arts centre’s building has been hard to miss and Seven Sharp got a sneak peek of what was inside.
World-famous artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser had sketched out the centre’s building as his last design before he died at the turn of the millennium. The Austrian artist and architect moved to New Zealand in the 1970s and lived in Kawakawa.
However, it took until 2018 for the project to get off the ground after years of volunteer campaigning.
“When people walk in the door, I’m just going to stand there and watch their reaction,” Richard Smith, a friend of Hundertwasser, said.
The centre’s Pam Tothill said visitors could discover all sorts of new features in the building if they looked hard enough.
“When you explore, you’re going to find all sorts of things in this building. All sorts of wacky, unusual things.”
Built to the artist’s stipulations, the art centre has a rooftop garden featuring the near-extinct Three Kings Kaikōmako, which is the world's rarest tree.
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