Hundertwasser Art Centre

Friedensreich Hundertwasser-designed gallery on the harbour

The Hundertwasser Art Centre opened in 2022, more than two decades after the Austrian artist sketched designs for it during one of his many visits to Northland. The building is unmistakably his: irregular floors, undulating walls, ceramic columns, a forest planted on the roof. It houses the only permanent Hundertwasser collection outside Vienna and the Wairau Maori Art Gallery.

It is the single biggest reason to spend an afternoon in Whangarei. The temporary exhibitions vary in quality, but the building itself is the main attraction — an oddity dropped into a provincial New Zealand town that has divided locals and drawn visitors in roughly equal measure since opening.

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A story
Hundertwasser, the Austrian artist who lived for much of his later life in the Bay of Islands, sketched a design for converting the old council building in Whangarei before his death in 2000. It took another 22 years and a divisive local referendum to actually build it — the centre finally opened in 2022, complete with golden domes, tree-covered roof, and the artist's trademark refusal of straight lines.