Hundertwasser

The Green Citadel of Magdeburg

2003-2005

Breiter Weg 8–10, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany

The non-profit "Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft Stadt Magdeburg von 1954" (Housing Association of the City of Magdeburg of 1954) commissioned Hundertwasser to plan a multifunctional residential and commercial building. In the course of the transformation of Magdeburg's Cathedral Square, one of the first prefabricated slab buildings in the GDR, located on Breiter Weg, was replaced by Hundertwasser's innovative architecture. The Hundertwasser project fits into an architecturally unique ensemble that includes a Gothic cathedral, an eleventh century Romanesque monastery and the state parliament built in a mixture of baroque and classical styles. At the same time it represents the antithesis of the nearby bank and other buildings with their austere, and rather cold, post-war architecture.

There are fifty-five residential units in the Green Citadel of Magdeburg, along with shops and cafés on the ground floor; on the upper floors there is also a kindergarten and a hotel.