New Zealand: Northland – Kawakawa, Hundertwasser Toilets

🚗 Kawakawa and Its Quirks

Kawakawa was small but full of character. It had grown around coal mining and railway connections, and while those industries were long gone, the town had found other ways to stand out. The name came from a native plant traditionally used by Māori for medicinal purposes, a reminder that the area’s story stretched far back before mining arrived.

Walking through the town, it felt friendly and slightly eccentric. Shops were modest, streets were quiet, and there was a strong sense of local pride. It was the kind of place that felt comfortable being itself.

🚻 Hundertwasser Toilets

The public toilets in Kawakawa were far more than a curiosity and deserved much more time than we had first expected to give them. Designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the building stood right beside the old railway line and the main road, impossible to miss and clearly intended to be that way. Hundertwasser had strong views about architecture and how people should live with their surroundings. He believed buildings should work with nature rather than against it, and that straight lines, uniform surfaces, and concrete boxes were not suited to human life.

Hundertwasser moved to New Zealand later in his life and settled in Northland, where he found the landscape and slower pace of life more in keeping with his ideas. He became closely involved with the local community around Kawakawa and offered to design the toilet block as a gift, provided local people helped build it. Construction made use of recycled materials, including broken tiles, glass bottles, and reclaimed bricks. Nothing was hidden or smoothed over. Every surface showed evidence of the materials used and the hands that placed them.

The building itself ignored almost every conventional rule of architecture. There were no straight walls, no flat floors, and no identical features. The roof was planted with grass and small trees, turning it into a living surface rather than something purely functional. Inside, the floors sloped gently and unevenly, forcing you to pay attention to where you stepped. Windows were irregular shapes, letting in light in unexpected ways. Bright colours covered the walls, arranged in mosaics that felt playful rather than decorative.

What made the toilets particularly interesting was that they were never intended to be a tourist attraction. They were designed first and foremost to be used, and people did exactly that. Locals treated them as part of daily life, while visitors arrived in steady numbers, cameras in hand, often slightly unsure how to behave around something as ordinary and as famous as a public toilet. Somehow, it managed to be both at once without feeling awkward.

The toilets also represented a rare example of a well-known artist creating something entirely practical for a small town, without charging for the design or insisting on control over how it was received. Hundertwasser saw it as a way of giving something back and of demonstrating that even the most basic public facilities could be imaginative, individual, and humane. He believed beauty should not be reserved for galleries or wealthy homes but should be part of everyday life.

Standing there and watching people come and go, it was clear that the building had become part of Kawakawa’s identity. It brought visitors into the town who might otherwise have driven straight through, and it encouraged them to stop, wander, and spend time locally. Yet it never felt like a gimmick. It felt honest, slightly odd, and entirely comfortable with itself, much like the town around it.

We spent far longer than planned walking around the building, looking at small details and taking it all in. As far as public toilets go, it was easily the most memorable we had ever seen. More than that, it was a reminder that practical things do not have to be dull, and that even something as simple as a toilet block could reflect ideas about nature, creativity, and community if someone cared enough to think differently.