Hundertwasser's sanity

The buildings envisaged by the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000) and realised in, among other places the Kunsthaus and Hundertwasserhaus (shown in my photo) in Vienna are magnets for tourists and others. They are exuberant in their colour, irregularity, and sheer quirkiness. Hundertwassser loudly repudiated the stark functionality of 20th-century architecture in favour of decoration and, whenever possible, closeness to nature. It's a shame that his lesson is still lost in the never-ending din of modern architecture's obsession with straight lines, grey and white, and exclusion of decoration. I'm still buzzing from encountering Hundertwasser's buildings for the first time and wish more note were taken of his immensely engaging philosophies.