The image of classical architecture as pristine white marble temples set against the blue sky is largely a figment of the twentieth-century imagination. 

The great Greek and Roman sites were, in their day, effusively polychromous—blue friezes, red capitals, statuary as tarted up as any in Las Vegas.

The multicolored architecture of the Renaissance is epitomized by the white, green and red scheme of the Duomo in Florence. 

In the gray ashes of World War I, the modernist Die Bauwelt published an issue titled “A Call for Color in Building.” Polychromy had became an act of revolution.

 

 

  Rockwell Group, Pod Restaurant, Philadelphia, 2000.

 

 

 As a response to a structural engineer’s drawing showing the gravitational loads along the building’s façade, the architect decided to allow this sketch to drive the exterior color scheme. Thus, areas in red denote the heaviest loads, those in blue the lightest, with yellow and orange in between.

 

 

 

 

Sherwood Mills and Smith, St. Mark’s Church,
 New Canaan, Connecticut, 1961.

Sherwood Mills and Smith, St. Mark’s Church, New Canaan, Connecticut, 1961.

 

This is a modern take on the splendid multicolored stained glass windows that were the artistic achievement of the Middle Ages. Here the windows are set in a staggered pattern within walls in a brick herringbone pattern, the light brown color allowing the effusive glass to stand out. Also blending into the background is the white ceiling, acting like a screen onto which streaming shards of color project at key times of the day.

 

 

Toshiko Mori Architect, Compound on the Gulf of Mexico,
 Sarasota, Florida, 2002 

Toshiko Mori Architect, Compound on the Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota, Florida, 2002.

 

An entrance hall to a beachfront house sports a prism-shaped skylight whose glass surface manages to change color with the time of day, indeed at times replicating the soft blues and pinks of a Gulf of Mexico sunset. Direct light pours in from an adjoining clerestory window, bouncing off of the angled glass surface and providing diffused light for the owner’s collection of modern art. 

 

Toshiko Mori Architect, Compound on the Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota, Florida, 2002.

 

Toshiko Mori Architect, Compound on the Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota, Florida, 2002.

Gisela Stromeyer Design, Club Incognito,
Zurich, 1998.

Gisela Stromeyer Design, Club Incognito, Zurich, 1998.

Five lanterns made of spandex stretched with fiberglass rings are illuminated. This effusive display of color and geometrics is something of a lesson in color interaction. The translucence and transparency of the fabric allows various layers to overlap; thus, blue over yellow yields green; yellow over red, orange.

Gisela Stromeyer Design, Club Incognito, Zurich, 1998.

 

Gisela Stromeyer Design, Club Incognito, Zurich, 1998.

The Moderns LTD, Rewarding Lives Exhibition for
American Express, New York, 2002. 

 

The Moderns LTD, Rewarding Lives Exhibition for American Express, New York, 2002.

The multi-hued spatial effects of the fabric-and-steel “tent” structures contrasts with the strictly black-and-white photography of Annie Leibovitz that was on display within. Because of the reflective nature of the fabric, only a small amount of color light is sufficient to give them the appearance of brilliant, oversized gems.

 

The Moderns LTD, Rewarding Lives Exhibition for American Express, New York, 2002.

 

The Moderns LTD, Rewarding Lives Exhibition for American Express, New York, 2002.

 Book Reference:
Architecture in Detail: Colors
https://amzn.to/3yfR3bA