Forget the breathtaking scenery: Snazzy TOILETS prove to be the latest must-see attraction in New Zealand

  • Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser created modern art wonderland
  • The Kawakawa khazis on the North Island are a five-hour drive north of Auckland
  • About 250,000 visitors a year make the pilgrimage to the Northland toilet block  

New Zealand has it all, from fjords to volcanoes to punchy sauvignon blancs but it is also attracting visitors for a completely different reason - to see, if not use, a less than convenient convenience, a five-hour drive north of Auckland on North Island.

The toilet block in Kawakawa on the remote tip of Northland attracts 250,000 people each year.

The visitors come to see something that is more gallery than outhouse - the work of the late eccentric Austrian architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Hundertwasser created the potty toilet block in 1999
He died a year later so he never got to see how popular the toilets were to become over the next 20 years

Friedensreich Hundertwasser created the potty toilet block in 1999. He died a year later so he never got to see how popular the toilets were to become over the next 20 years

The toilets are a multi-coloured mash-up of collage and mosaic

The toilets are a multi-coloured mash-up of collage and mosaic

A multi-coloured mash-up of collage and mosaic adorn the inside and outside of the facility providing the most photogenic of backdrops. 

But Hundertwasser never got to see how well his work was received.  

The artist moved to New Zealand in the 1970s and created the potty toilet block in 1999 in what was then something of a backwater. 

However, the architect died at the turn of the millennium, aged 71, so he never got to see how popular the toilets were to become over the next 20 years.

Today, hordes of travellers take a ten-minute detour off the state highway to the Hundertwasser Toilets at 60, Gillies Street, to take photographs.

The visitors who come to photograph the toilets now far exceed those that come to use the facilities

The visitors who come to photograph the toilets now far exceed those that come to use the facilities

They are struck by the variety and iridescence of materials that the artist incorporated into the interior and exterior of the structure. 

An environmentalist at heart, Hundertwasser recycled whatever materials he could lay his hands on.

These included bricks from a demolished Bank of New Zealand building, tiles made by students at Bay of Islands College, empty bottles and scraps of concrete, steel and copper.

The construction - epitomising the concept of 'build it and they will come' - is the main draw to Kawakawa and the most photographed toilet in New Zealand.

Materials used to build the block include bricks from a demolished Bank of New Zealand building, tiles made by students at Bay of Islands College, empty bottles and scraps of concrete, steel and copper

Materials used to build the block include bricks from a demolished Bank of New Zealand building, tiles made by students at Bay of Islands College, empty bottles and scraps of concrete, steel and copper

Hordes of travellers take a ten-minute detour off the state highway to the Hundertwasser Toilets at 60, Gillies Street, to take photographs 

Hordes of travellers take a ten-minute detour off the state highway to the Hundertwasser Toilets at 60, Gillies Street, to take photographs 

The construction - epitomising the concept of 'build it and they will come' - is the main draw to Kawakawa 

The construction - epitomising the concept of 'build it and they will come' - is the main draw to Kawakawa 

The visitors who come to photograph the toilets now far exceed those that come to use the facilities. 

Hundertwasser, born Friedrich Stowasser in 1928, led a life as intricate as the artwork he created.

Born into a Jewish family, Hundertwasser was baptised in the Catholic Church and joined the Hitler Youth to evade persecution during the Second World War.

He is credited with assisting with a plan to help the Dalai Lama escape Tibet, campaigning for the environment and was a royalist opposed to the European Union.