Austria 1987 - focus

Austria

6th April 1987 - "Modern architecture"
design: Auguste Böcskör
engraving: Wolfgang Seidel
printer: Osterreichische Staatsdruckerei GmbH [OeSD]

I love architecture, that's why I love the 1987 Europa stamps year ! It is hard to take one stamp out of this year but I decided to focus on the Austrian stamp.


The stamp represent the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna built between 1983 and 1986 by the City of Vienna. I was lucky enough to visit it when I visited the Austrian capital. This house is amazing, totally different of the usual standards we know in architecture. Lot's of colours, twisted walls, mosaics, mirors, trees on the roof, etc. It makes me think of a house coming out of a children drawing.

This house came out of the mind of Friedensreich Hundertwasser an Austrian architect who decided to build houses made of windows instead of walls. All his buildings are from the same type but the one depicted on the stamp is his most famous one, that's why it's simply called Hundertwasser-house !

Friedensreich Hundertwasser is not only an architect, he is also an artist who produced many stamps (mainly for Austria but also for Liechtenstein, the UN or more surprisingly for Cape Verde !), a website is even dedicated to them: http://www.hundertwasser-stamps.com

On the top left of the stamp you can see a little E logo. This is the logo of Europalia, an arts festival held every two years in Brussels celebrating one specific country and in 1987 it was Austria's turn. It's the first time that a Europa stamp is bearing this logo. This year's Europalia's invitee is Brazil.

source of the images : http://www.ibolli.it/indexes/cept/index.php