Painterly Promenade
Haus der Farbe
Colour Strategies in Architecture
Knapkiewicz & Fickert
Second Layer Colour Strategies in Architecture
Reiach & Hall Architects
Hushed Tonalities
Rainer RĂźmmler
Immersive Pop
Basil Spence
Tectonics Clarified
Hans Scharoun
Holistic Interplay
Lux Guyer
Colour Strategies in Architecture
Fiona McLachlan, AnneMarie Neser, Lino Sibillano, Marcella Wenger-Di Gabriele, Stefanie Wettstein Schwabe Verlag, Basel In association with Haus der Farbe, Zurich
Acknowledgements Foreword by Iain Boyd Whyte Introduction
6 9 15
Lux Guyer
Painterly Promenade
27
Hans Scharoun
Holistic Interplay
47
Basil Spence
Tectonics Clarified
69
Rainer RĂźmmler
Immersive Pop
87
Reiach & Hall Architects
Hushed Tonalities
107
Knapkiewicz & Fickert
Second Layer
Conclusion Image credits and permissions Project and Responsibilities Publication details
129 148 150 151 152
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Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a chance meeting at the Association Internationale de la Couleur (AIC) Conference in Zurich in 2011, where three of the authors met for the first time and felt an immediate rapport. The subsequent research project has been an inspiring and productive international and interdisciplinary collaboration, which has benefitted from the support of a number of individuals and institutions. Firstly, we acknowledge the work of six assistants in Zurich and Edinburgh who helped with the colour “capture”, observation, mixing and the production of some of the colour samples: Andrea Capaul, Chiara Fingland, Rebecca Goodson, Isaac Nugent, Dodo Schneider and Ursula Ochsenbein. In addition, a group of students from the Colour Design Building course at the Haus der Farbe in Zurich carried out the colour survey of the Lux Guyer houses. We are grateful to Regula Bielinski for optimizing the results of this project. Funding for the knowledge exchange trip to Zurich was provided by a grant from the University of Edinburgh, which has also provided essential support through a research sabbatical for Fiona McLachlan and support for materials and travel. Funding for the reciprocal trip to Scotland and the colour “capture” in Berlin was made possible through three research grants from the Swiss Ikea Foundation. All texts have been co-authored following translation. Particular thanks are due to Iain Boyd Whyte for his translation of the original German drafts into English and for his invaluable editorial advice. The following institutes and archives in Zurich and Berlin have given their support to the research: the gta Archives (for the estate of Lux Guyer) at the ETH Zurich, the Archives of the Federal State of Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage, the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, and the Architectural Archive of the Academy of Arts. Our thanks are also due to the architectural practice of adb Ewerien and Obermann for their advice and for allowing us to make use of their conservation report for the Berlin State Library, and to Professor Friedrich Schmuck for making available Hans Scharoun’s colour fans, now out of print. For their kind and profound support, we would like to thank the former colleague of Rainer G. Rümmler, Rudolf Eisenbach, and Lux Guyer’s niece, Beate Schnitter, who provided numerous documents, together with her own invaluable recollections. We also thank the architectural
practices Reiach & Hall and Knapkiewicz & Fickert for their openness and readiness to cooperate. For the careful production of this book, we thank book designers Barbieri Bucher and Stephanie CuĂŠrel, and the printing team at Schwabe. We also thanks Marianne Wackernagel, Co-Director of Schwabe Publishers, for accepting the book into the publishing programme, and Reto Helbling, Head of Marketing and Sales at the Swiss Centre for Rationalisation in Construction (CRB) and Matthew Smith at Urbane Publications, for advice and support on marketing. The project would not have been possible without the generous financial support of our project partners: Dold plc Paints and Coatings, Fontana & Fontana plc, IGP Powder Coatings plc Switzerland and the CRB. Finally, we would also like to thank our respective families, friends and colleagues for their support and patience in the development of this project. Fiona McLachlan AnneMarie Neser Lino Sibillano Marcella Wenger-Di Gabriele Stefanie Wettstein
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1 Stefan Locke, “Ist die Stadt zu bunt” [Is the town too colourful?], Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 October 2014. 2 See Robin Middleton, “Colour and Cladding in the Nineteenth Century”, Daidalos, 51 (15 March 1994), pp. 78–90. 3 Ferdinand Avenarius, “Farbige Häuser!”, Kunstwart ,13, no. 13 (April 1900), p. 37. [Weshalb also streichen wir unsre Häuser nicht farbig? Es gibt keine einfachere und keine billigere Art, einen schlichten Bau freundlich, wohlgefällig und sogar wirklich schön zu machen, als ein gut gestimmter farbiger Anstrich, zu dem dann wieder Dach, Thüren, Fenster, Balkon, Laube, Zaun usw in anderen fröhlichen Farben stehen können.] 4 Adolf Behne, Wiederkehr der Kunst (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff, 1919), p. 102. [Die Farbe! Was den heutigen gebildeten Kunstspießer vornehmlich kennzeichnet, ist ja seine Furcht vor der Farbe! Farbe ist nicht “fein”. Fein ist Perlgrau oder Weiß. Blau is ordinär. Rot ist aufdringlich, grün ist kraß …, die Farblosigkeit ist das Kennzeichen der Bildung […]. Und woher diese Angst vor der Farbe? Der Spießer ahnt in der Farbe das Elementare, Höhenlose.” 5 Bruno Taut, “Aufruf zum farbigen Bauen”, Bauwelt, 10, no. 38 (1919), p. 11. [Wir wollen keine farblosen Häuser mehr bauen und erbaut sehen. […] Farbe ist nicht teuer wie Dekoration mit Gesimsen und Plastiken, aber Farbe ist Lebensfreude.]
6 Bruno Taut, Ein Wohnhaus (Stuttgart: Franckh’sche Verlagshandlung, W. Keller, 1927), p. 31. [Die Farbe bekräftigt in einfachen Flächen und reinen Tönen den jeweiligen Spannungscharakter der Wände und Decken, ja auch der Fußboden und gibt so die letzte und alles übrige unnötig machende Harmonie des Raumeindrucks.] 7 Ibid., p. 39. [Die drei Wände mit Fenstern und Außentür sind … sandgrau, während die drei übrigen Wände des sechseckigen Raumes ein Weinrot tragen, mit dunkleren Türumrahmungen der gleichen Skala, und zwar deswegen, weil die leuchtende Abendsonne warm, aber nicht grell aufgefangen werden soll.] 8 On the close relations between modernist architecture and the colour white, see: Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: the Fashioning of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995). 9 See: Helge Pitz, “Die Farbigkeit der vier Siedlungen — Ein Werkstattbericht”, in Norbert Huse (ed.), Siedlungen der zwanziger Jahre — heute: Vier Berliner Großsiedlungen 1924–1984, exhibition catalogue (Berlin: Bauhaus-Archiv, 1984), pp. 59–80. 10 Le Corbusier, Œuvre complète de 1910-1929, Ed. W. Boesiger and O. Stonorov, Zurich: Les Éditions d’architecture Erlenbach, 1946, p. 60. “À l’intérieur, les premiers essais de polychromie, basés sur les réactions spécifiques des couleurs, permettent le ‘camouflage architectural’, c’està-dire l’affirmation de certains volumes ou, au contraire, leur effacement. L’intérieur de la maison doit être blanc mais, pour que ce blanc soit appréciable, il faut la présence de la polychromie bien réglée: les murs en pénombre seront bleus, ceux en pleine lumière seront rouges; on fait disparaître un corps de bâtisse en le peignant en terre d’ombre naturelle pure et ainsi de suite.”
oreword F Iain Boyd Whyte
In October 2014 one of the most serious German-language newspapers reported that a house-painter living in Dresden had been ordered by the city council to repaint his house, with the instruction that he should use “only pale and off-white colours on all rendered external surfaces.”1 His offence had been to paint his house a bright blue, and he had argued this his colour choice was “vibrant” (leuchtend) and not “garish” (grell), as the neighbours had complained. This fear of colour on building has a long history. It carries echoes of the Lutheran iconoclasm (Bildersturm), which saw paintings, sculptures and stained glass torn out of the churches, to be replaced by white walls and clear glass. Moving forward into the nineteenth century, colour was the chief issue of contention in the debate that raged in France in the 1830s between the traditionalists in the École des Beaux-Arts, who saw the architecture of antiquity as one of natural stone, and the radical spirits of the time, who argued that the Greek and Roman buildings had carried vibrant polychromatic decorations. According to Jacques Ignace Hittorff, the chief spokesmen of the progressive younger architects: “The system of polychrome architecture was a permanent feature with the Greeks. It formed part of the totality of their architectural production as one of the most suitable means of adding to the majestic character of their temples the charm of an elegant beauty, which was always the poetic privilege of this people and its divinities. [...] This system, applied to edifices raised under the clearest sky, illuminated by the most beautiful sun, and surrounded by brilliant vegetation, was, thanks to the freshness and brightness of the colours, the only means at the artist’s disposal to set the work of art in harmony with the inexhaustible richness of nature.2” Hittorf’s conviction was shared by the likes of Henri Labrouste and Gottfried Semper, who in their designs and writings had an enormous influence on the evolution of polychrome architecture over the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, the call for colour was taken up very strongly in Germany both by the conservative spirits, who saw it as traditional virtue, and by the avant-garde. Representing the former, the poet and publicist Ferdinand Avenarius asked in 1900: “Why don’t we paint our houses in colour? There is no simpler or cheaper way to make a plain building more welcoming, delightful, and even truly beautiful than a wellchosen coat of paint, to which the roof, doors, windows, balcony, pergola, fence, etc. can contrast in other joyful colours.” 3 On the avantgarde side,
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the architect Bruno Tauts celebrated Glass House, built for the 1914 exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund at Cologne, was a hymn to colour in architecture and carried on its architrave the doggerel motto: Das bunte Glas zerstört den Haß (Coloured glass destroys hatred). More practically, the houses Taut designed for the Falkenburg garden suburb, built on the outskirts of Berlin in 1913– 14, were painted in bright colours, earning Falkenburg the dismissive sobriquet “paintbox suburb”. As the critic Adolf Behne argued at the time, the elemental joy in colour was precisely the reason for the widespread hostility towards it: “Colour! The thing that principally marks today’s educated art philistine is, of course, his fear of colour! Colour is not ‘elegant’. Pearl grey or white are ‘elegant’. Blue is vulgar. Red is loud, green is crass … colourlessness is the mark of education. […] And where does this fear of colour come from? In colour the philistine senses the elementary, the boundless.” 4 Taut pursued his mission to promote coloured architecture in his postwar polemics, with an article published in 1919 in the journal Bauwelt entitled “Aufruf zum farbigen Bauen” (Call for coloured building), in which he insisted: “We do not want to build colourless houses any more. […] Colour is not expensive like decoration with cornices and sculptures, but colour is full of the joy of life.” 5 He put his theory into practice in the design of his own house, which he built at Dahlewitz, south of Berlin, in 1926–27. Here, in Taut’s own words: “The colour reinforces in simple planes and in pure colours the particular character of tension between the walls and the ceiling, and also the floor, and thus creates the ultimate harmony in the spatial impression, making anything else unnecessary.”6 In the main sitting room, Taut explains: “The three walls with windows and external door are sand-grey, while the three remaining walls in the hexagonal space are wine-red, with darker door frames in the same colour range, and this for the reason that the glowing evening sun should be captured warmly but not glaringly.” 7 In such a space, argued Taut, all other decoration becomes redundant. In spite of Taut’s urgings, however, white was the façade treatment favoured in many of the great housing developments of high European modernism in the 1920s and early 30s. 8 In Germany, the modernist architecture of this period was widely known as Die weiße Moderne, and one of the largest housing estates in Berlin was called Die weiße Stadt (the white city). Yet the image of modernist architecture as essentially white is a myth. As recent research and reconstruction has shown, colour played a central role even in Die weiße Stadt, where the stairwells in the section designed by Otto Rudolf Salvisberg were detailed in burgundy-red, yellow and green, while the façades on the section by Bruno Ahrends had cornices in blue or in red and yellow, with window frames to match. 9 Similarly, the interiors of the houses in Dessau designed by Walter Gropius for the Bauhaus masters were extremely brightly coloured, as were those in the Villa la Roche (1924–25), which marked Le Corbusier’s first attempt at a systematic colour scheme using 18 shades. As the architect explained: “In the interior, the first essay in polychromy, based on the specific reactions of the colours, allowing ‘architectural camouflage’, which is to say the affirmation of certain volumes or, on the contrary, their neutralization.
The interior of the house should be white, but to make this white significant, the presence of well-regulated polychromy is necessary: the walls in half-shadow will be blue, those in direct light will be red; the body of building can be made to disappear by painting it in pure natural umber and so on.” 10 In spite of the overwhelming evidence that colour and architecture are complementary rather than contradictory, the fear of colour still stalks architectural education – where it is barely acknowledged – the architectural profession and the public consciousness. For this reason, Colour Strategies in Architecture is to be warmly welcomed. On the basis of a small number of exemplary buildings, it teaches us not only how to look at colour, but how to think about it, how to analyse it, and how to explicate it. Although often dormant, these are all essential skills for the architect, and this book deserves a place in every design library.
pp. 12, 13
6 Architectural Practices 18 Buildings 354 Colours Overview of all the captured and hand-mixed colours, ordered by architectural practice.
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Lux Guyer, Obere Schiedhalde
Basil Spence, Canongate
Basil Spence, Claremont Court
Rainer RĂźmmler
Reiach & Hall, Forth Valley College
Knapkiewicz & Fickert, Rigiplatz
Lux Guyer, Saffa-Haus
Lux Guyer, SunnebĂźel
Hans Scharoun, Philharmonie
Hans Scharoun, Staatsbibliothek
Reiach & Hall, Bannockburn
Knapkiewicz & Fickert, Klee
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1 Johannes Itten, The Art of Color: the Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color (New York: Reinhold, 1961), pp. 24–26. 2 Gottfried Semper, translated by Harry Mallgrave, Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts, or, Practical Aesthetics (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2004). 3 Adolf Loos “Das Prinzip der Bekleidung”, Ins Leere gesprochen (George Crès: Paris, 1921) p. 108. English translation “The Principle of Cladding” in Adolf Loos, Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays, 1897–1900 (Cambridge Mass: MIT Press, 1982), pp. 66–69. 4 Caruso St John Architects, Knitting, Weaving, Wrapping, Pressing (Basel: Birkhauser, 2002), p. 76. Paul Vermeulen suggests that Caruso St John’s primary aim is to create an atmosphere through the material wrapping of the space – a reference to Adolf Loos’ essay “Das Prinzip der Bekleidung” (see above). 5 The three European cities differ in terms of their social, climatic and geographical contexts. Although these aspects are important for our theme, this study concentrates on the strategic use of colour by architects and the documentation of the colour palettes employed in particular projects.
6 Some of the designers, such as Hans Scharoun or Sir Basil Spence, were highly regarded, internationally renowned architects, whose work is well documented. Although colour clearly plays a key role in their work, it is rarely paid any attention or discussed as an integral component of their architecture. 7 This study focuses on three underground railway stations dating from the 1970s, as, with their Immersive Pop colour strategy, they give the clearest insight into Rümmler’s design approach. 8 For example, it is well known to supermarkets and restaurants that the colour temperature of the light will have a dramatic effect on the perception of food. 9 Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963, revised 2006), p. 8. 10 According to Rudolf Arnheim, there is no reliable data on a colour as it really is: it is always determined by its environment, a “moody medium”. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Vision: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 343. 11 Where the original colour scheme is no longer visible, it has been determined and remixed as exactly as possible on the basis of colour scrapes, archive research and historical photographs. 12 This method matches the way in which colour is chosen in architectural practice. Architects and designers rarely use colourmetrics in order to specify colour. More usually, the choice is made on the basis of commercial products, material samples or colour swatches/chips. In this case, chance and ambivalence prevail, for example in the colour accuracy of the sample, its size and the lighting conditions at the moment of choice. The choice of colour is seldom scientific and rests almost always on a qualitative rather than a quantitatively measurable judgement. 13 There are limitations to the method used. It is less applicable to colour strategies that rely on the metaphysical properties of colour as light, such as in the architecture of Steven Holl, or in the case of projects that play on optical illusion.
Introduction
Colour as a means of architectural design Without question, colour is an essential and versatile means of shaping space. It is far more than decoration; it is an aid to interpretation and clarification. Colour can confer meaning, context or identity; it can both support architectural form or subversively work against it. Colour helps us comprehend the character, the mood and the spatial hierarchies of architecture, and can be used to optimize space: to give it individuality, to bring calm or add vitality. It reinforces or blurs spatial boundaries, defines and accentuates surfaces and volumes within the composition. In the early twentieth century, the architectural avant-garde revisited the question of colour, scrutinized its function and partly redefined its tasks. Among the architects engaged in this project were Hans Scharoun, Bruno Taut, Le Corbusier, Lux Guyer, Ernst May, Hans Poelzig and Otto Haesler, to name only a few. They identified colour as an essential element in the design process and thereby revived the great nineteenth-century debate about the importance of colour in building. Since the 1920s and 30s, however, the theme has never played a really central role in the discourse, and has been pursued to a greater or lesser extent only by a few architectural practices. Today, the potential of colour as a design medium is becoming increasingly recognized. Architects are exploring its many facets, its flexibility, and its expressive qualities in both traditional and experimental contexts. There are a number of highly respected architects and designers for whom the way in which we experience space, the metaphysical qualities of colour, light and psychological states of emotional well-being, symbolism, memory and the role of the senses have been central to their work. Examples include Sigurd Lewerentz, Luis BarragĂĄn, Steven Holl, Sauerbruch Hutton, Juhani Pallasmaa and Peter Zumthor. To them, the character and feeling of each space is paramount, and the colour of natural materials and applied surface treatments play a vital strategic role in the design. In each case, the idea of colour will be present, inviting a bodily engagement with space, physiologically and psychologically, through sensory stimulation. In general, colour decisions are often subjective and intuitive. Johannes Itten (1888–1967), who taught at the Weimar Bauhaus in the early twentieth century, observed and later documented the “subjective
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timbre” of his former students, their preferences for particular colours and colour combinations. 1 In relation to architectural design, similar traits can be observed, although architects are not necessarily conscious of having a “palette” or indeed aware that they employ colour in a strategic manner. Architects and designers are often vague or uncertain about the role of colour as a dynamic agent in spatial design. Wether inherent in materials or applied as a surface coating, without an understanding of the possibilities and characteristics of colour, its space-forming potential may be overlooked or deliberately avoided. There is a level of anxiety, uncertainty or rejection surrounding the use of colour in architecture. If colour choice is seen as subjective, it can be all too easy to get on the wrong side of individual taste. On the other hand, if prescriptive rules are employed, these may limit the scope for individual creative exploration and application and appear overly didactic or ideological. Both of these approaches can lead to bland, poor or unimaginative use of colour in architectural design. Decisions on colour are frequently left until late in the design process for a number of reasons, some simple and pragmatic, some complex. For most contemporary architects and designers, the initial interrogation of the brief will be followed by a synthesis of conflicting demands, sources, spatial and technical considerations, and budget. Architectural quality is gradually teased out, edited and refined. Strategic design decisions tend to be driven by spatial, functional, structural, material considerations and economic realities. The choice of materials, particularly for primary structural elements, is likely to be a key factor in setting the aesthetic and spatial attributes of the project. Designers and architects are conscious that even the most technical of constructional investigations requires aesthetic judgement at all stages and at all scales. In most cases, the choice of surface finishes, and particularly the actual colour of elements, are not selected until the eleventh hour, even though these will have a fundamental effect on the way in which the building is experienced. Ideally, the principles of a colour strategy should be developed early in the design process, well before the actual palette or materials are decided. This strategic approach to colour may be supportive, or entirely integral to the conceptual framework for the design. A colour scheme that is firmly anchored in the design takes into consideration such diverse aspects of architecture as space and light, design language and context, function and mood, and expressions of materiality and texture. The nineteenth-century architect Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) defined the essence of architecture to be its covering layer, as opposed to the constructional, material structure. 2 The surface treatment of enclosing walls and surfaces were paramount in defining the qualities of the spatial enclosures. Adolf Loos (1870–1933) further developed the relationship between structure and skin, or cladding, in the essay Das Prinzip der Bekleidung (1898). 3 His approach to the honest expression of surface and materials remains highly influential. Contemporary architects tend to first consider the planning, structure and
construction, and subsequently the lining and dressing of the resultant spaces and surfaces. There are notable exceptions such as the London-based practice Caruso St John, which draws on Loos’ approach, but subverts it further. Less concerned with being honest in expressing materials and construction, their primary focus is to define a particular “atmosphere” for a space, and then to develop a structural and constructional framework that provides the enclosure. 4 Interior designers and colour consultants will be more familiar with this approach, but may have less opportunity to manipulate spatial relationships or synergies between planes, volumes and light. Although decisions on any material almost always involve colour, and it has a critical effect on the physical and psychological experience of space, its role within architectural design is not well documented or theorized. This study will address this omission and reinforce our understanding of the added value that integrated colour design can bring to the design process. The objectives of the study This book interrogates existing architecture with the aim of identifying the role of colour within the design. These studies are offered as interpretations that have been developed through an expansive, analytical and intersubjective process of observation, research and interviews. The aim is to separate the colour strategy from the individual colour palette and to be clear in communicating these different approaches. In this way, the strategy can be applied by others, irrespective of the specific colour palette used. The aim of this book is to present a range of exemplary strategies in the use of colour in architectural design – to inspire and inform a wide audience including architects, designers and students. The book concentrates on design practice, rather than theory, in a series of short thematic essays. Without taking a strictly didactic stance, it offers new insights that will be stimulating, inspiring and directly relevant for architects and designers. By a close observation and analysis of the work of six architectural studios, active from the early twentieth century to the present day, the authors consider how the use of colour contributes in a strategic manner to the quality and articulation of space and architectural expression. Six architectural practices – six colour strategies The six practices, based in Berlin, Edinburgh and Zurich, 5 have been selected specifically because they offer a wide range of approaches to the integration of colour, from natural materials, to pigmented materials and applied finishes, and because they were active from the early twentieth century to the present day. 6 On the basis of their work, six different colour strategies in architectural design can
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be illustrated. The chapters are arranged according to the chronological order of the built work. Painterly Promenade Lux Guyer, a pioneer woman architect based in Zurich, designed a number of innovative projects. Her first prefabricated house was built as an exhibit at the 1927 SAFFA (Swiss exhibition of women’s work) in Bern, celebrating the achievements of women. Her houses can be seen as a painterly promenade with individual rooms that can be open or closed, changing the vista from one coloured space to another. Neither truly open plan nor free plan, the architecture is flexible and designed to respond directly to the needs of family life. Her use of colour is atmospheric, defining a spatial sequence or promenade. Lux Guyer (1894 – 1955) — Saffa-Haus (1928), Haus Sunnebüel (1929 – 1930) and Haus Obere Schiedhalde (1929)
Holistic Interplay Hans Scharoun’s Berlin Philharmonie and Staatsbibliothek sit side by side near Potsdamer Platz, golden ships that seem to have come to rest in what was once the vacant wasteland adjacent to the Berlin Wall. Scharoun’s use of colour is integral to his holistic architectural design, supporting and subtly articulating the informal geometry, and orientating the visitor through spatially complex interior landscapes. The colour is symbiotic with the architectural form, and the interplay between surface, form and colour is crucial to the atmosphere of each space. Hans Scharoun (1893 – 1972) — Philharmonie (1957 – 1963) and Staatsbibliothek (1964 – 1978)
Tectonics Clarified Basil Spence, best known as the architect of
Coventry Cathedral in England, practised from the 1930s through to the 1980s. Colour and materials are used to articulate and reinforce a tectonic reading of structure, rhythm and volumes. He was known as an accomplished draughtsman, and his formative years included work on key post-war exhibitions such as the 1951 Festival of Britain, for which he designed the Sea and Ships Pavilion. His colour palette, which was marked by strikingly bright tones, strong contrasts of light and dark, and lively colour accents, reflects this age of optimism. The strategy is illustrated in two Edinburgh housing projects. Basil Spence (1907–1976) — housing at the Canongate (1959–1969) and Claremont Court housing (1958–1962) Immersive Pop Rainer Rümmler was responsible for the design of several underground stations in West Berlin from the 1960s through to the 1970s. Each station is given identity through the intense, graphical use of colour, pattern and signage. The stations, clearly intended to be out of the ordinary, have a feeling of a 1970s lounge, are modish,
stimulating and lively, but also highly practical in their use of materials. The experience is immersive, reflecting the underground journey. 7 The colour suggests a sudden shift, a mind-altering, almost psychedelic experience to counter the potential boredom of the city commute. Rainer Rümmler (1929–2004) — Berlin U-Bahn stations at Fehrbelliner Platz (1971), Rathaus Steglitz (1974) and Konstanzer Straße (1978) Hushed Tonalities Although Reiach & Hall have been in existence
since the 1960s, the work has a clear continuity that transcends changing personality. The current design director, Neil Gillespie, is conscious that the practice should maintain this sense of continuity, a subtle, timeless approach to architecture as supportive and reflective of life. Their use of almost monochrome variations forms two distinct threads in the architecture: buildings of the light, and charred buildings of the shadow. In each case the building is highly contextual with the surrounding landscape, and the colour of the natural environment is invited into the buildings as an essential contributor to the soft and subdued palette. Reiach & Hall Architects (established 1965) — Forth Valley College (2011) and Bannockburn Heritage Centre (2013) Second Layer The contemporary Swiss architects Knapkiewicz & Fickert apply colour directly to surfaces to distort scale and to suggest alternative interpretations or meanings. Two housing projects in Zurich exemplify this strategy. The colour offers a second narrative layer and a second way of reading the architecture. Surfaces are inscribed, almost as a mask, shifting the perception of the scale, planes and volumes. The colour is subversive and deliberately playful, sometimes supportive and sometimes counter to form, but consistently provocative. Knapkiewicz & Fickert Architekten (Kaschka Knapkiewicz and Axel Fickert) — Klee Housing (2006–2011) and Rigiplatz Housing (1997–2010)
Research methodology The research methods adopted for this book reflect a phenomenological, empirical approach to colour and architecture. The process focussed first on close observation in order to “capture” the colours and their relationship to space. The objective of this detailed colour detection was to decipher the individual observed colours, to convert these into an abstract colour portrait of each building, and in turn to determine an overall strategic attitude to the use of colour. The common starting point for these findings was therefore to determine the specific colours, their extent on site and the colour scheme for each project. In this way, the arguments proposed in this study are based on verifiable physical data.
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This inductive method, working from the specific to the general, offers a further significant layer of meaning and promotes a comprehensive understanding of the use of colour in architecture, arrived at through perception and observation. Accordingly, the phenomenological approach makes sense, as colour is rarely static and can appear very differently depending on the space. This means that in establishing an accurate reading of colour, many diverse factors must be taken into account, which affect the appearance of colour in a given context. Colour and appearance It is important to note that colour is simply reflected light, and that the colour we see is entirely dependent on the chemical structure and texture of the surface under particular light conditions. The colour that is registered by the viewer is the part of the spectrum that is reflected, rather than absorbed by the object. When the colour of a particular material is discussed, it is therefore always dependent on the light conditions in which it is seen. 8 Colour is experienced in a somatic sense, by a combination of psychological and physiological signals, which are contingent on the position and movement of the body in space. Furthermore, colour is entirely a product of cognitive processes in the mind of the viewer, which interpret the incoming sensory information. Our eyes can play tricks on us, and our perception of colour is also influenced by cultural and subjective factors such as memory, sight, age, gender and association. As summarized by Josef Albers, colour is “the most relative medium in art”. 9 When light conditions can be controlled and varied, the capricious qualities of colour generated as a result of the specific context can be embraced and integrated within the strategy. 10 Given these ephemeral, situated, and subject-dependent properties, it is unrealistic to aspire to precision in describing the ways in which we perceive colour. Yet this does not mean that our experiences are entirely unpredictable; it means rather, that special care is required to ensure the most objective interpretation.
Experiencing, capturing and communicating colour – a way of reading,
a mode of seeing The colours were observed in situ, matched to
swatches, then carefully hand-mixed and hand-painted on panels in the studio to document the colour palette. 11 Unlike a photographic image, the colour was recorded as observed by a group, usually three of four people making a judgement at a given time, to give a degree of balance to subjective factors. The process also involves an abstraction of each material to a representative colour based on a paint sample. Specific characteristics, including texture, reflectance and surface grain, were recorded. For materials with variations in colour and texture, such as timber, stone or brick, the colour was matched to the perceived colour when standing a short distance away from the surface. A brick wall consists of both brick and mortar joints, and the colour of the mortar can have