[sameer aftab sial] colour dichotomy in architecture by Sameer Aftab

Abstract Colour dichotomy explores the split of visualizing colour into two non-‐overlapping definitions. However, the classification seems to change in relation to architecture: the intrinsic and the applied characteristics of colour, its use as a distinction as well as an amalgamation of a creative thought process in creating built environments.

The paper looks at the dynamic experience of colour in architecture with response to

the changing trends, technology, and the demand for aspirational changes by the inhabitants. The paper starts with a question whether ‘colour’ is a character or a sensation felt through experience, covering topics such as, colour and the architect, colour methodology, and history of developing modern colours, followed by case studies.

All the buildings in the case studies’ section are located in London – United Kingdom.

The report is carefully woven in accordance with a timeline, starting from the advent of colour in built environment, and then finishes off on the new technologies that are being catered in producing vibrant urban structures in the city of London. All the examples carry different opinions when talking about their impact and ambiance in the surrounding areas. Some have left negative and rest leave a very optimistic perception for the users of those particular fostered atmospheres.

Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to my family for their unconditional love, encouragement and support during my studies and throughout my life. I would also like to acknowledge, with gratitude, my debt of thanks to my supervisor Dominic Wilkinson, for his guidance and valuable criticisms during my research and studies. He ironed out the rough edges by taking interest even in the minutest of the details.

List of Illustrations -‐

Fig 1: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2010

-‐

Fig 2: Reproduction of Fig 1, Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2010

-‐

Fig 3: Source: Rio, URL: http://imagine.change.co.uk/2013/04/can-‐you-‐use-‐colour-‐to-‐mask-‐a-‐ th

problem/ (Accessed on 25 November 2012) -‐

Fig 4: Re-‐production of Fig 3 found at URL: http://imagine.change.co.uk/2013/04/can-‐you-‐use-‐ th

colour-‐to-‐mask-‐a-‐problem/ (Accessed on 25 November 2012) -‐

Fig 5: Source: URL: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/street-‐of-‐color-‐guanajuato-‐4-‐olden-‐ mexico.html (Accessed on 25th November 2012)

-‐

Fig 6: Re-‐production of Fig 6 found at URL: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/street-‐of-‐color-‐ guanajuato-‐4-‐olden-‐mexico.html (Accessed on 25th November 2012)

-‐

Fig 7: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2011

-‐

Fig 8: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2011

-‐

Fig 9 (A and B): Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2011

-‐

Fig 10: Source: Scanned from, Colors of the World -‐ a Geography of Colors, 2004.

-‐

Fig 11 (A, B, C, D): Scanned from: Peerzada, S., K-‐Architecture, Pakistan: Black olive publication, 2009.

-‐

Fig 12(A and B): Source: United Colours of Jodhpur, URL: rd

http://www.flickr.com/photos/travellingtom/54960562/ (Accessed on 3 March 2013) -‐

Fig 13(A and B): Source: Taken from: URL: http://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/tarling-‐ th

east.php (Accessed on 28 November 2012) -‐

Fig 14 (A and B): Source: Wansey Street Housing, URL: th

http://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/wanseyst.php (Accessed on 28 November 2012) -‐

Fig 15 (A, B, C, D): Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2012

-‐

Fig 16 (A and B): Scanned from: Lancaster, Michael (1996) Colourscape, Academy Editions, p. 68

-‐

Fig 17 (C and D): Scanned from: Lancaster, Michael (1996) Colourscape, Academy Editions, p. 68

-‐

Fig 18: Scanned from: Lancaster, Michael (1996) Colourscape, Academy Editions, p. 77

-‐

Fig 19: Source: Miracle of the Slave, URL: http://www.polomuseale.venezia.beniculturali.it (Accessed nd

on 2 February 2013) -‐

Fig 20: Chosen from different websites.

-‐

Fig 21: Source: Light and Colours Facts, URL: http://someinterestingfacts.net/light-‐and-‐colours-‐facts/ rd

(Accessed on 3 February 2013) -‐

Fig 22: Source: The Milkmaid, URL: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/milkmaid.html (Accesssed on 4th February 2013)

-‐

Fig 23: Colour Swatches indicating that how the intensity of colour has changes since its origination till date.

-‐

Fig 24: Source: Assumption of the Virgin, URL: http://www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian16.html (Accessed on 3rd February 2013)

-‐

Fig 25: Colour standards set by the Munsell System of colours.

-‐

Fig 26: Source (A, B, C, D): Munsell System, URL: http://spie.org/x33063.xml (Accessed on 4th February 2013)

-‐

Fig 27 (A and B): Source: Housing on Page Street, URL: https://www.westminster.gov.uk/workspace/assets/publications/Page_Street_CAA_SPD_2010-‐ 1288352235.pdf (Accessed on 18th February 2013)

-‐

Fig 28 (A and B): Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 29: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 30: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 31: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 32: Source: Barking Central, URL: http://www.ahmm.co.uk/projectDetails/22/Barking-‐ st

Central?image=1 (Accessed on 1 May 2013) -‐

Fig 33: Source: Barking Central, URL: http://www.ahmm.co.uk/projectDetails/22/Barking-‐ Central?image=1 (Accessed on May 1 2013)

-‐

Fig 34: Source: China Wharf, URL: http://www.czwg.com/works/china-‐wharf (Accessed on 1May 2013)

-‐

Fig 35 (A and B): Source: CZWG Architects, URL: http://www.czwg.com/works/china-‐wharf (Accessed on 1 May 2013)

-‐

Fig 36 (A and B): Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 37: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 38: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 39 (A, B, C): Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 40: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 41: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 42: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 43: Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

-‐

Fig 44: Source: Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-‐st-‐giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013)

-‐

Fig 45 (A and B): Source: Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-‐st-‐giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013)

-‐

Fig 46 (A and B): Source: Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-‐st-‐giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013)

-‐

Fig 47 (A and B): Source: Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-‐st-‐giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013)

-‐

Fig 48: Source: Royal National Theatre, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_National_Theatre_London_SouthBankCentre02.jpg (Accessed on 1 April 2013)

-‐

Fig 49: Source: Wilkinson, D., Personal Collection.

-‐

Fig 50: Source: Wilkinson, D., Personal Collection.

Table of Contents

A Introduction -‐ a disposition or phenomena ................................................................... 09 A.1 Why Colour? ................................................................................................................. 10 B Literature Review and Research into Historic and Contemporary Architectural Colouring .......................................................................... 10 Chapter 1 Colour and the Architect .................................................................................. 14

1.1 The Use of Environmental Colour ................................................................................ 14 1.2 Colour and Place .......................................................................................................... 15 1.3 Colour Technology ....................................................................................................... 23 1.4 The Need for Considered Colour in the Built Environment ......................................... 26 1.5 Colour of a City as a Cultural, Social and Personal Signifier ......................................... 27

Chapter 2 Colour methodology ........................................................................................ 29

2.1 Colour Traditions .......................................................................................................... 30 2.2 Availability of Colour .................................................................................................... 30 2.3 Protection with Colour ................................................................................................. 30 2.4 Influences by Immigrant Communities in a Built Environment ................................... 31 2.5 Buildings as Advertisement .......................................................................................... 32 2.6 Colour Planning ............................................................................................................ 33

Chapter 3 History of developing new colours ................................................................... 34

3.1 Development of Synthetic Pigments ............................................................................ 35 3.2 New sources for historic pigments ............................................................................... 38 3.3 Industrial standards ..................................................................................................... 42 3.4 The Term ‘Modern Materials’ ...................................................................................... 44

Chapter 4 History of developing new colours ................................................................... 45 4.1 Why London? ............................................................................................................... 45 4.2 Advent of Impression of Colour and Pattern Making .................................................. 46 4.2.1 Grosvenor Estate .............................................................................................. 47 4.2.2 Barking Central ................................................................................................. 52 4.3 Exhibition of Forcible Colours ........................................................................................ 54 4.3.1 China Wharf ....................................................................................................... 55 7

4.4 Experimentations in the Built Environment ................................................................... 57 4.4.1 Hornsey Street Social Housing ........................................................................... 58 4.5 An Appreciation of the Existing Environment ................................................................ 61 4.5.1 NEO Bankside ..................................................................................................... 62 4.6 Encroachment of Ideas in Construction ........................................................................ 68 4.6.1 Central St Giles Complex ................................................................................... 68 4.6.2 Royal National Theatre Building ....................................................................... 74 C Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 79 D Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 83

A Introduction -‐ a disposition or phenomena Colour and light are major factors in our architectural environment. They have great impact on our psychological reactions and physiological well being. Research has proved that light and colour affect the human organism on both a visual and non-‐visual basis. It is no longer valid to assume that the ‘only’ significant role of light and colour is to provide adequate illumination and a pleasant visual environment.1 We perceive colour principally in two different ways: as an attribute of objects and as a separate sensory phenomenon. The surprising fact is that the first, regarded as natural and normal, it is based not upon the true appearance of the colours but upon our experience and visual memory. For example, we know that the sky is blue, the grass is green and the earth is brown. For most of us, it is the ‘objective view’ that prevails most of the time. On the contrary, in order to negotiate objects and find our way in the world, we need to be able to identify things under a variety of different circumstances and in different light conditions. ‘The eye has evolved to see the world in unchanging colour, regardless of always unpredictable, shifting and uneven illumination.’2

Mahnke, Frank, H., Colour, Environment and Human Response: An interdisciplinary understanding of

colour and its use as a beneficial element in the design of the Architectural Environment, U.S.A: Van Nostrand (1996), p.3 2

Quoted by Osborne, R., Lights and Pigments, London: John Murray, 1984.

A.1 Why colour? Colour is such a powerful design tool that it is very hard to realize its suppression, especially in this twenty first century. It is also hard to reconnect and reintegrate with a world of sensibility, delight and articulation that we have made available to ourselves. Its understanding of psychological powers and its meaning, the ability that it holds in communication and mapping of modern life’s complexities, and the scientific analysis of colour creation, adds strength and potential to our on-‐going lives. Colour is a direct expression and represents a visual response. Colour experience and colour sense appear to be collective vernacular expressions.

B Literature review and Research into historic and contemporary architectural colouring Investigating colour in the built environment, there are references that has been sought in the use of colour within traditional vernacular and sacred architecture from around the world.

In the book ‘ Colors of the World: A Geography of Color’3, Jean Philippe and

Dominique Lenclos represented and revealed something of the depth of daring, rich and celebratory colour that exists in many parts of the world, often regardless of financial riches. The photographs reveal an important issue of giving importance to the visual environment, 3

Lenclose, J-‐P and Lenclose, D., Colors of the World – A Geography of Color, W W Norton & Company

Incorporation, 2004.

in that specially highlighting ‘colour’ in these cities. They demonstrate how, often very simple architecture is articulated and identified through colour. The book ‘The Color of Cities’4 again by Lois Swirnoff predicts that the Earth provides locales with tremendous variety and diversity of geographic and physical features that shape human visual responses, certainly psychologically and perhaps physiologically as well. A palette of colours seems to be cultivated in places where human populations have been stable or continuous for long periods of time. Overtime, whatever people see in their surroundings they use. Percept becomes concept. The vernacular colour sense arises as a united human reaction to the atmosphere. Tom Porter’s book ‘Colour Outside’5 provides an insight into colour as completely a derivation from associations found in the nature. The author, in short, shows how colour, as both abstract and a descriptive element can enrich the form of space with greater significance than a more neutral position would allow. In the book, Porter emphasizes on different aspects and usages of colour, in other words, how colour when applied becomes its own hue with the time passing by and the importance that it reflects on the built environment. The colour on wall, mainly as graffiti, how it is being encouraged in some social hubs of the world. For instance, in the United Kingdom, regional arts associations and local authorities giving healthy encouragement to those who wish to paint the town. This chapter emphasizes on the fact that wall art has become an intrinsic part of the urban experience, with places as far as Swindon and Cincinnati, Manchester and Manhattan, etc.

Swirnoff, L., The Color of Cities: An International Perspective, McGraw – Hill Professional Publishing, February

2003. 5

Porter, T., Colour Outside, Architectural press, 1982.

There is another development: the emergence of a new breed of designer. The one who concentrates on the application of colour to a complete architectural scheme rather than to a single wall. This development has shifted a colour decision inside and alongside the architect’s whole design process.6 ‘Colour for Architecture’7 and a sequel of this, ‘Colour for Architecture Today’8, both by Tom Porter and Byron Mikellides, the books stand as an important reference. These are compilations of contributions from architects, colour psychologists and artists who were active in the environmental colour research in the 1970s when the first book was written. In the introduction, the authors state; ‘The book has been produced out of an awareness that colour, as a basic and vital force, is lacking from the built environment and that our knowledge of it is isolated and limited.’9 Yes, there have been some architects who embraced the potential of an added dimension to their architecture through a sensitive engagement with colour, but a greater proportion negate colour and shy away from its possibilities altogether. In the book ‘Chromophobia’10 by David Batchelor underlined how some of the masters add colours liberally or carelessly in response to transient fashions and tastes for particular colours or materials. Whichever way, informed or not, either interested in colour or not, all of them contribute to a coloured environment of varied aesthetic quality, an

Ibid, Colour Outside, p.35

Porter, T. and Mikellides, B., Colour for Architecture, London: Studio Vista, 1976.

Porter, Tom and Mikellides, B., Colour for Architecture Today, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009.

Ibid, Colour for Architecture

Batchelor, D., Chromophobia, London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2000.

environment that is imposed on its users and which triggers the mental and the physical responses in those users. In the late twentieth century, Lois Swirnoff has made a lifetime’s study of colour as a dimensional phenomenon, within art, architecture and nature. Her book ‘Dimensional Color’11 takes Josef Albers colour research12 which had largely dealt with two dimensional surfaces, however, Swirnoff brings in the debate of trying out colours in the three dimensional planes by carrying out experiments with her students that were dealt, both in terms of observed phenomena in the built environment and also through her own chromatic structures and her studio based experiments with her students13. While colour appears to lie on the surface, it is not superficial. It signals a sense of space, or assigns form in perception, and connotes meaning by association. The surfaces of old cities offer examples of colour structure within the spatial-‐temporal frame described. While they need not be ‘designed’ environments can reflect distinctive characteristics, by the customary use of particular ranges of colour. The character or flavour of individual cities has much to do with their coloration, made distinctive by local palettes of indigenous pigments and materials, which accrue with time. While the ambience of each place is unique I find that colour usage or its organization in the environment occurs in a similar way.14

Swirnoff, L., Dimensional Color, London: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2003.

Lois Swirnoff was a pupil of Josef Albers in Yale.

She and her students explored the three-‐dimensional perceptual colour phenomena through experiments

with bas-‐relief, folded papers and metal, three-‐dimensional construction of colour planes and coloured modular accumulations. 14

Swirnoff, L., Dimensional Color, London: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2003, p.7

Chapter 1 Colour and the Architect Architects and designers all over the world are showing renewed interest in the role of colour in all aspects of art and design, especially in built environments. Making colour as the desirable contributor, the designers now recognize its expressiveness by using its associative embellishments or use it as a symbol. While colour has a constructive aspect, it is added at a last decision in architectural tradition. Goethe observed, “We now assert, extraordinary as it may in some degree appeal, that the eye sees no form, in as much as light, shade, and colour constitute that which to our vision distinguishes object from object, and the parts of objects from one another. From these three, light, shade, and colour, we construct the visual world…”15

1.1 The use of environmental colour Just imagine a scheme where a world is without colours; that might end me you up running in a maze of finding your own territory on the map. Colour is what makes cities identifiable, it is the colour that brings up the cultural differences in those cities; it is the same colour that makes architecture standout from other manufactured structures. The role of colour in the urban scheme is linked to altitudinal or time-‐based perception. The modality of motion influences visual awareness of the city. The pedestrian’s moving eye scans and selects, pauses in the continuum of a street to notice a feature, a storefront or graphic façade, an articular doorway. The enthusiasm of colour occurs in the 15

Goethe, J.W., Theory of Colors, London: John Murray, 1984.

arrangement of connected facades on a street. A linear cluster of colours, such as the purple browns, lends coherence to a brown stone neighbourhood. Reappearance of these colours on adjacent streets confers identity to a district. A shift in intensity or hue draws attention to a single façade, detaching it as an individual building. The doorways adding the windows detailed with colour in them break the rhythm of facades looking into the streets. These experiences of colour usage if replicated elsewhere; they constitute syntax for the colour of old cities.

1.2 Colour and place Although it is clear that colour is the significant aspect of every place, explanations of its particular role are beset with difficulties. As a visual medium, colour depends upon precedents that can be judged visually. The most obvious of these are the old towns and villages that are often described as colourful – mostly places with large numbers of painted buildings.16 If the buildings in Venice were colourless (Fig 2), it would have just been another city built on canals. Venetian urban spaces are medieval, confines, narrow; the dramatic contrast between Labyrinthian passageways and open piazette are orchestrated by shadows and the brightness of the sun imbuing the city is reflected in its canals and the in the lagoons of the Adriatic.17 16

Lancaster, M., Colourscape, London: Academy Editions, 1996, p. 61

Swirnoff, L., The Color of Cities: An International Perspective, McGraw – Hill Professional Publishing, February

2003, p.13

Fig 1 and 2: Comparison between the ‘coloured’ and ‘monochrome’ Venice.18

Impression of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro; surprisingly, in stark contrast to the poverty, they are the most vibrant parts of the city. Bright yellows, pink, blues, purples and greens give the favela a surprise feeling of unity. The image below highlights the movement of colours (Fig 3) whereas the expression changes when same colours are hidden (Fig 4).

Fig 3 and 4 : Rocinha, The Largest favela in the city of Rio di Janeiro, Brazil.

Thinking of Guanajuato in Mexico (Fig 5), seems the emotional essences of spices in their food and the hot burning sun has made them use a colour palette that is shocking but at the same time, a very enthusiastic way of outshining other expanses. And then if these 18

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2010

Re-‐produced Fig 4 using original photograph found at URL: http://imagine.change.co.uk/2013/04/can-‐you-‐ th

use-‐colour-‐to-‐mask-‐a-‐problem/ (Accessed on 25 November 2012)

colours would have not been there (Fig 6). Colour plays a role in organizing continuum of facades on a street. Harmonic groupings, adjacent to one another either in hue or value, can create the sense of flow.20

Fig 5 and 6 : The houses along the streets of Guanajuato in Mexico.

These are examples of some of the most famous places on earth, renowned for their ethnic beauty and hence making them strong competitors distinguished by usage of their cultural palette of colours, in the form of natural materials as well as when it is combined with paint. The colour of the city is an aspect of its history. In the world there are cities that developed by a slow process of organic growth, employing materials native to their regions. The constant use of local materials produced urban settings with visual harmony despite a diversity of forms. The colour decision was disciplined simply by the cheapness of applying local deposits of coloured earth or using them to tint or stain distemper and lime wash. This

Swirnoff, L., The Color of Cities: An International Perspective, McGraw – Hill Professional Publishing, February

2003, p.114. 21

Re-‐produced Fig 6 using original photograph found at URL: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/street-‐of-‐

color-‐guanajuato-‐4-‐olden-‐mexico.html (Accessed on 25th November 2012)

gave birth to a process called the ‘colour maps’ in which certain colours became identified in particular regions.22 While talking about regional identities through colour, let me highlight the Far East cities as well. Travelling through some of the cities of Thailand, I observed that the vernacular architecture in coastal regions of Phuket follows a very vibrant chart of colours for houses in comparison to the much-‐developed areas as Bangkok; where emphasis is more in glorifying religious buildings with custom-‐made materials and artificial colours, rather than ordinary houses.

Fig 7 : Houses in Phuket, Thailand Fig 8 : Houses in Bangkok, Thailand

Porter, T., Colour Outside, UK: Architectural press, 1982.

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2011

Ibid

Fig 9 (A and B) : Porcelain tiles used for roofs of religious temples and palaces in Bangkok, Thailand.

In contrast, in the Japanese architecture, form, surface, colour, and texture are integrally considered in their architectural traditions. It was in Japan that Jean-‐Philippe Lenclose first developed the idea of the ‘geography of colour’. While studying in Kyoto, he became aware of the subtleties of natural colours. In his own words: “I was suddenly struck by the very special colour sense of japan, by the extraordinary range of colour in the kimono, by the subtle palette of shades of grey and dark brown in the old wood, and by the enormous variety of colour in ordinary everyday objects.”26

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2011

Lenclose, J-‐P, The Geography of Colour, Tokyo: San’ei Shobo Publishing Company, 1989.

Fig 10 : Colour from intrinsic materials used in Japan.

Looking at Southeast Asia, this region can open up more opportunities in understanding the role of colour in a region. Let it be the unsure colours of Karachi (Fig 11) in Pakistan or the kaleidoscopic colours of Jodhpur (Fig 12) in India, both the regions tell their story through the same medium of narration, and that is colour. The reason that once both the regions were part of one country, the regions got divided but same cultural traditions of colour remain the same. "Colour plays a distinct role in shaping the visual culture of a city or country .It is the one of the oldest forms of communication known, and we are attracted to it like magpies -‐to a shiny object. Colour is simple and pure ... “28 27

Source: Scanned from: Colors of the World -‐ a Geography of Colors, 2004.

Herbert Y.P.MA., Pacific Island, 1996, p.79. 20

Fig: 11(A, B, C, D) : Time playing an important role in withering of building materials.

29 Scanned from: Peerzada, S., K-‐Architecture, Pakistan: Black olive publication, 2009.

Fig 12 (A and B) : Blue is a common colour from the palette used for Jodhpur, India.

Europe has been a prime location for experimenting with colour, from the mythical buildings of the Romanesque era to the contemporary architecture being practiced today. The term ‘colour’ has been the same; only its approach towards usage keeps changing with the passage of time. History has taught us many lessons and that is the only reason we are progressing towards a better side of living, necessarily lavish, but unnecessarily demanding. Just observe colours in the built environment around you, there are thousands of colours used that you might even not know the name of them. Some buildings will have the intrinsic colours all over them, making you think them of a more monotony as if they were born with it. For example, the filtered light of England produces a more evenly diffused ambience. Therefore in rural British Isles, the national palette always contained pinks and reds in the 30

Source: United Colours of Jodhpur, URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travellingtom/54960562/ (Accessed rd

on 3 March 2013)

east and the west, with umbers to the north and south surrounding a hinterland of yellow ochre if considering the past. In urban spaces, public buildings tend to display the uniform colour characteristics; the neutral greys of concrete or stone.31 But today, contracted colours are being used as well in some of the modern buildings. Office buildings, skyscrapers and anonymous architecture that permeate the urban field, define modern buildings. There is a huge difference in the application now. There are a variety of options now. The colour pigments that are not available in a region is simply imported or produced synthetically.

1.3 Colour technology ‘Colour Technology’ is playing a vital role now. It concerns the science and technology associated with creating, controlling and characterising the visual appearance of coloured materials, objects and images. Examples can often help to clarify meaning so just look around you. The inks, paints, coatings, fabrics and cosmetics used to control the appearance of the objects and us and surroundings in our everyday life are included. Colour is used as shorthand for appearance, which includes colour, gloss, translucency and texture. From traditional beginnings, colour technology now includes the ways by which colour and appearance information can be represented in digital imaging; the capture, storage, distribution and reproduction of coloured images.32

Porter, T., Colour Outside, London: Architectural press, 1982

Source: Colourtechnology.org.uk URL: http://www.colourtechnology.org/ (Accessed on 28 November 2012)

On a trip to London, UK, one can compare the architectural spirit of the historic London with the modern one with a camera. At times he will notice new buildings seemed me as forceful encroachments into the historic city. But, on the contrary, in some places they will look attractively blended with the existing environment. For example, East London is seeking a lot of residential scheme emerging as part of regeneration framework. Looking at the Tarling East Housing33 by S333 Architects or the Wansey Street Housing34 by dRMM Architects, it seems for every building, a unique taste of colour was chosen that merges with the existing yet gory surroundings, evoking a sense of excitement.

Fig 13 (A and B) : Bright yellow applied in Tarling East Project in Bow East London.

Source: Tarling Regeneration, East London URL: http://www.s333.org (Accessed on 28 November 2012)

Source: Wansey Street URL: http://drmm.co.uk/projects/wansey-‐street/ (Accessed on 28 November 2012)

Source: Taken from: URL: http://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/tarling-‐east.php (Accessed on 28

November 2012)

Fig 14 (A and B) : The graduated, striped composition of the façade -‐ a progression from canary yellow to vermilion – links buff-‐coloured.

In fact, researches in the field of environmental psychology reveal that visual and aesthetic quality, and specifically the chromatic quality, of our surroundings has substantial effects in individual and societal well-‐being. Environmental psychologists such as Faber Birren and Rikard kuller, have published evidences since the 1950s and the 1960s. There is a biological need of colour and light in humans. Colour and light are major factors in our architectural environment. They have great impact on our psychological reactions and physiological well-‐being. Research has proved that light and colour affect the human organism on both a visual and non-‐visual basis. It is no longer valid to assume that the ‘only’ significant role of light and colour is to provide adequate illumination and a pleasant visual environment.37 36

Source: Wansey Street Housing, URL: http://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/wanseyst.php (Accessed th

on 28 November 2012) 37

Mahnke, Frank, H., Colour, Environment and Human Response: An interdisciplinary understanding of

colour and its use as a beneficial element in the design of the Architectural Environment, USA: Van Nostrand Reinhold, p.9.

1.4 The need for considered colour in the built environment Light, which creates colour out of darkness, is an excellent symbol of the soul, which animates matter and out of it creates the body. As the fading of the red glow from the evening cloud, which leaves a grey rack behind, so is the death of a man. The light of the soul grows dim and diffuses out of the fabric of the body.38 Faber Birren, further reinforces the link between scientific research and philosophic practice. In response to environment, people expect all of their senses to be moderately stimulated at all times. This is what happens in nature, and it relates not only to colour and changing degrees of brightness, but also to variation in temperature and sound. The unnatural condition is one that is static, boring, tedious and unchanging. Variety is indeed the spice-‐ and needed substance-‐ of life.39 One cannot deny the importance of colour in nature, but the point of interest should lie upon its usage in contrast to nature. Architectural colour should blend with nature, should form a counterpoint to nature. If the colouration is aggressive, it will create a psychological dissonance in the viewer, more of a visual pollution. The more our cities and environments will be filled with such pollution the more psychological disorders will become visible in the society as a whole. The colour arises as a form of vernacular expression in an environment, and it is a challenge for the designer who can even be a resident of the particular place; a nomad who can correlate colour as a shaping factor, within the physical constraints of a spatial order 38

Stierlin, H., (ed.) The Spirit of Colours: The Art of Karl Gerstner, Cambridge: Mass M.I.T Press, 1981, p.45

Birren, F., Light, Color, and Environment, USA: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1983.

and its natural setting, requires analysis and sensitivity to context, the primary stipulations to design. And should be aware of and try to avoid sterility in form and colour. The intonations that time and climate impose on a building should be recognized and celebrated rather than whitewashed and ironed out. Ruskin promoted the principle in his book ‘The Stones of Venice’.40 The emphasis on the need for careful analysis of the existing colour environment should be also kept in mind.

Fig 15 (A,B,C,D) : the photos provide a study on how weather and time plays role on materials.

1.5 Colour of a city as a cultural, social and personal signifier The idea of bringing all this argument is that this piece of writing will focus on the symbiotic relationship between the built environment and its inhabitants. Whether a city is a reflection of its citizens or to what extent do cultural and social factors colour the city. Does the colour of the environment reveal aspects of a collective unconscious of a region or through changing the colour? Maybe, colour can convene methods of organization of the urban field in time as well as space. 40

Ruskin, J., The Stones of Venice, Cambridge: Da Capo Press, March 1985.

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2012

The research will also reflect the subjective nature of an individual’s viewpoint. The aim of presenting city through my eyes, how much it will be a portrait of myself rather than the city. Rambling through the research pattern, observing with photography and brushes to paint, it will be based on the role of colour playing in architectural concerns as: stagnation and decay, transformation and regeneration; harmony balance and resonance, disruption and dissonance; materiality and immateriality. Despite all the brilliance of human engineering, how we still need to define aesthetics in the form of a design that reflects light as colour.

Chapter: 2 Colour methodology Colour is the light made visible through interaction with surfaces of all kinds. It is the surfaces – whether they are opaque or translucent – that make colour visible. Their pigmentation determines which colours are absorbed, which transmitted or refracted and which reflected.42 Textured surfaces reflect diffusely; smooth surfaces reflect directly – always subject to the relative angles of the light source and the observer. Textures vary with scale and distance: for example, the texture of a rough surface at a close quarters may have an effect equivalent to that of a ribbed material further away or even a row of bay of windows in the distance. Wet surfaces and smooth materials reflect more intensely than matt.43 The pigmentation contained within any material – whether it is natural or artificial – determines the colour by its capacity to absorb a proportion of the constituent colours of natural colour (the additive primary colours: orange-‐red, green and blue-‐violet44). Natural materials borrowed from the nature itself, are cultivated to be richly textured and delicately coloured. If variations do not occur in the material itself or, many types of stones are very plain – the deficiency is often made up in the detail of traditional building. Whether or not there is an unseen relationship between site and materials – a kind of natural integrity as some believe – there are undoubtedly good reasons for avoiding some materials. 42

Lancaster, M., Colourscape, London: Academy Editions, 1996, p.23

Ibid, Colourscape, p.25

Osborne, R. (1980) Lights and Pigments, John Murray London, p.70

2.1 Colour traditions Colour traditions apply to both material and applied colours – those that are innate and those painted on the surface. In reality both occur together and the latter is often derived from the former.45 It is evident on ‘grand houses’ in Scandinavia where use of red and yellow is frequent as, in imitation of the brick and stone colours.

2.2 Availability of colour There are many practical reasons for the uses of paints and their choice of colour. Availability, cost and budget have always been important considerations, and the basic colours; black, white and a range of colours in the yellow, red and brown spectrum, are almost universally available.

2.3 Protection with colour For protection of porous materials, for example, where there is little stone or is of poor quality, there is always need of plaster or render as a binding material. Which itself has given rise to colour-‐wash traditions all over the world. The British lime was regarded as a useful fire retardant and frequently painted over all internal and external surfaces, including the thatch of the roof. ‘ White’ because it also had a symbolic value; in England white was associated with good luck.46 45

Alexander, C. (1963) Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Oxford University Press

Hutchings, J., Colour in Folklore, Folklore society, London

2.4 Influences by Immigrant communities in a built environment The translation of colour traditions in a specified town or a city has also, always travelled through stylistic and technical ideas introduced by immigrant communities. The use of green on houses often indicates inhabitants from Pakistan, green being both the colour of Mohammed’s tribal flag and that of the nation. Chinese quarters are distinguished by the use of red, signifying good luck. Indian, Bangladeshi, West Indian and Caribbean communities are all inclined to use combinations of brilliant colours typical of their bright homelands, which easily appear garish in the soft diffused light of northern climates.

Fig 16 (A and B), 17 (C, D) : From all the images above you one can observe that blue and green are equivocal colours. They are to some extent interchangeable, the one merging into the other. As the colours of the sky and vegetation they have ambivalence in their symbolic meanings.

Scanned from: Lancaster, Michael (1996) Colourscape, Academy Editions, p. 68

2.5 Buildings as advertising The idea of controlling colour is anathema to many people, the ones who regard it as one of the few personal freedoms remaining. Free markets and zoning regulations are deteriorating into chaos because of the pressures of development today. For instance, one modern trend is the tendency for buildings to become advertisements in themselves, by virtue of their form, their colour or both. The practise of new developments that are based on the form, details and colours of the advertising images of the company or client are emerging. Sir Norman Foster’s elegant Renault building in Swindon advertises itself with the Renault yellow; a colour that works well with the landscape. When it was built it was isolated; now after some twenty years it is jostled by a miscellany of other buildings, to poor effect.48

Lancaster, Michael (1996) Colourscape, Academy Editions, p. 75

Fig 18 : The Renault Building, Norman Foster’s elegant structure advertises itself with the Renault yello. A colour that works well with the landscape. When it was built it was isolated: now after some twenty years is it jostled by a miscellany of other buildings, to poor effect.

2.6 Colour planning The main argument of colour planning is that colour is there already. It exists or appears as a fact of nature and is an aspect of natural materials as of paint, although this is often overlooked. Natural materials are the basis of most colour legislation. The second argument that hinges on the first – is that legislation does not and cannot effectively control the proliferation of coloured surfaces of many kinds that are appearing in all parts of the environment. In general these are not perceived as a threat but necessary to modern life. We are all attracted by colourful places. And there is no doubt that the first appearances of colour in the grimy streets of Magdeburg in 1921, in post-‐war Britain were as welcome as spring flowers after a long winter. But what precisely do we mean by ‘colourful’? There are exciting places in which quantities of colour have been compressed for maximum effect. However there should always be a balance between excitement and repose, between the inevitable and perhaps desirable overloading of our senses on occasion and the familiar and stable, but equally necessary, parts of surroundings. As Gombrich notes, ‘ the basic fact of aesthetic experience… [is] that delight lies somewhere between boredom and confusion.’50 49

Scanned from: Lancaster, Michael (1996) Colourscape, Academy Editions, p. 77

Gombrich, EH, (1979,1984) A Sense of Order, Phaidon, London, p.9

Chapter: 3 History of developing new colours Ochres and iron oxides, the naturally occurring pigments have been used as colorants since prehistoric times. The earliest uncovered evidence that humans used paint for aesthetic purpose was in body art. The range of colour available for art and decoration was technically limited before the Industrial revolution. Earth and mineral pigments were widely used. Pigments from unusual sources such as botanical materials, animal waste, insects, and mollusks were harvested. Some colours like blue and purple were either costly or impossible to mix with the range of pigments that were available. That is why these two colours were associated with ‘royalty’. Biological pigments were often difficult to acquire, and the manufacturers kept the details of their production secret. Tyrian Purple51 is a pigment made from the mucus of one of several species of Murex snail.52 Mineral pigments were also traded over long distances. The only way to achieve a deep rich blue was by using a semi-‐precious stone, lapis lazuli, to produce a pigment known as ultramarine, and the best sources of lapis were remote.53

Source: Tyrian Purple, URL: http://www.green-‐lion.net/colour_purple.html (Accessed on 2nd February 2013)

Kassinger, Ruth G., Dyes: From Sea Snails to Synthetics, 21st century, February 2003.

Pastoureau, M., Blue: The History of a Color, Princeton University Press, 1st October 2001. 34

Fig 19 : Miracle of the Slave by Tintoretto (c. 1548). The son of a master dyer, Tintoretto used Carmine Red Lake pigment, derived from the cochineal insect, to achieve dramatic color effects.

3.1 Development of synthetic pigments The Industrial and Scientific Revolutions brought a huge expansion in the range of synthetic pigments, pigments that are manufactured or refined from naturally occurring materials, available both for manufacturing and artistic expression. Because of the expense of Lapis Lazuli, much effort went into finding a less costly blue pigment.

Source: Miracle of the Slave, URL: http://www.polomuseale.venezia.beniculturali.it (Accessed on 2

February 2013)

Two of the first synthetic pigments were WhiteLlead55 (basic lead carbonate) and Blue Frit56 (Egyptian Blue). Combining lead with vinegar in the presence of CO2 makes white lead. Blue frit is calcium copper silicate and was made from glass colored with a copper ore, such as malachite. These pigments were used as early as the second millennium BCE.57 Prussian Blue58 was the first modern synthetic pigment, discovered by accident in 1704. By the early 19th century, synthetic and metallic blue pigments had been added to the range of blues, including French ultramarine59, a synthetic form of lapis lazuli, and the various forms of Cobalt and Cerulean Blue60. In the early 20th century, organic chemistry added Phthalo Blue61, a synthetic, organometallic pigment with overwhelming tinting power.

Source: White Lead, URL: http://drawpaintsculpt.com/blog/the-‐lara-‐palette-‐lead-‐white-‐and-‐its-‐significance/ nd

(Accessed on 2 February 2013) 56

Source: Egyptian blue, URL: http://www.99colors.net/name/egyptian-‐blue, (Accessed on 2 February, 2013)

Rossotti, H., Colour: Why the World Isn't Grey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1983.

Source: Prussian Blue, URL: http://www.colorcombos.com/colors/00304A (Accessed 2nd February, 2013)

The color displayed in the color box above matches the color called ultramarine in the 1930 book by Maerz

and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: 1930 McGraw-‐Hill; the color ultramarine is displayed on page 105, Plate 41, Color Sample F12 and is shown as the color lying exactly halfway between blue and violet. 60

Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: 1930 McGraw-‐Hill Page 190; Color Sample of Cerulean: Page

89 Plate 33 Color Sample E6 61

Source: Mother of all HTML Colour chart, URL: http://tx4.us/mr/mr000.htm (Accessed on 2nd February 2013)

Fig 20: The first synthetic colours that were ever produced in history.

The discovery in 1856 of mauveine, the first aniline dye, was a forerunner for the development of hundreds of synthetic dyes and pigments like azo and diazo compounds which are the source of wide spectrum of colors. An 18-‐year-‐old boy named William Henry Perkin had discovered Mauveine62, who went on to exploit his discovery in industry and become wealthy. By the closing decades of the 19th century, textiles, paints, and other commodities in colors such as red, crimson, blue, and purple had become affordable.63

Source: Mauvine, URL:

http://www.rsc.org/Chemsoc/Activities/Perkin/2006/minisite_perkin_mauveine_non_flash.html (Accessed on 2nd February 2013) 63

Garfield, S., Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World. Faber and Faber, 2000.

3.2 New sources for historic pigments Many pigments were known by the location of their production before the Industrial Revolution. Raw Sienna64 and Burnt Sienna came from Siena, Italy, while Raw Umber and Burnt Umber came from Umbria. However, many famous natural pigments have been replaced with synthetic pigments culturally. The following examples illustrate the shifting nature of historic pigment names: By collecting the urine of cattle that had been fed only mango leaves, Indian Yellow65 was produced once. Modern hues of the colour are made from synthetic pigments.

Fig 21 : The ‘modern’ colours.

Source: Siena, URL: http://tx4.us/nbs/nbs-‐s.htm (Accessed on 3rd February 2013)

Source: Mother of all HTML colour chart, URL: http://tx4.us/mr/mrf7.htm (Accessed on 3rd February 2013)

Source: Light and Colours Facts, URL: http://someinterestingfacts.net/light-‐and-‐colours-‐facts/ (Accessed on

3 February 2013)

Fig 22 : The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer (c. 1658). Vermeer was lavish in his choice of expensive pigments, including Indian Yellow, lapis lazuli, and Carmine, as shown in this vibrant painting

Source: The Milkmaid, URL: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/milkmaid.html (Accesssed on 4th

February 2013)

Vermilion68, a toxic mercury compound favored for its deep red-‐orange color by old master painters such as Titian, has been replaced in painters' palettes by various modern pigments, including cadmium reds. Although genuine Vermilion paint can still be purchased for fine arts and art conservation applications, few manufacturers make it, because of legal liability issues. Few artists buy it, because modern pigments that are less expensive and less toxic, as well as less reactive with other pigments have superseded it. As a result, genuine Vermilion is almost unavailable. Modern vermilion colors are properly designated as Vermilion Hue to distinguish them from genuine Vermilion.69

Fig 23 : Vermilion and Indian Yellow, both the paints have been Substituted by synthetic paints and their names have changes respectively.

68 The color displayed in the color box above matches the color called vermilion in the 1930 book by Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: 1930 McGraw-‐Hill; the color vermilion is displayed on page 27, Plate 2, Color Sample L11. It is noted on page 193 that the color cinnabar is another name for the color vermilion. 69

Source: Pigment, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigment#cite_note-‐13 (Accessed on 3 February 2013)

Colour Swatches indicating that how the intensity of colour has changes since its origination till date.

Fig 24 : Titian used the historic pigment Vermilion to create the reds in the great fresco of Assunta, completed c. 1518.

Source: Assumption of the Virgin, URL: http://www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian16.html (Accessed on 3rd

February 2013 )

3.3 Industrial standards Batches for colours were often inconsistent before the development of synthetic pigments, and the refinements of techniques for extracting mineral pigments. Manufacturers and professionals till now have cooperated to create international standards for identifying, producing, measuring and testing colours in the modern colour industry.

Fig 25 (A and B) : Consistency in the usage of colour batches in the modern world. There is a specific standard for which the colours are known today unlike the past.

Colour standards set by the Munsell System of colours.

First published in 1905, the Munsell Color System73 became the foundation for a series of color models, providing objective methods for the measurement of color. The Munsell system describes a color in three dimensions, hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity), where chroma is the difference from gray at a given hue and value.

Fig 26 (A, B, C, D) : Approximate representation of the Munsell colors for four different hues.

Source: Munsell, URL: http://munsell.com (Accessed on 4 February 2013)

Source: Munsell System, URL: http://spie.org/x33063.xml (Accessed on 4th February 2013)

3.4 The Term ‘Modern Material’ The term modern materials refer to self – coloured materials, such as metal and glass, plastics and paints used in the new structures. Common feature includes a high degree of reflective material in the form of mirror-‐glass, glass and metals, combined with highly reflective saturated and luminous colours. In the cities, they are often at odds with the older urban fabric; on the urban fringe they jockey for commercial advantage; and in the country they exhibit the same disadvantages that used to be attributed to asbestos-‐cement roofs of Britain-‐ they do not appear to belong.75

This section of the report talks about the origination of natural as well as synthetic

pigments, and the paintings explain that how colour was incorporated by different artists in different times. Why? Because it made way to applying bright and exuberant colours in the built environment. 75

Ibid, Colourscape, p.28

Chapter: 4 Case Studies In this report London has been focussed as it is playing a major role in putting forth new ideas related to colours; sometimes peculiar, yet in a sophisticated manner in architecture. London is one of the world’s finest cities, a living creation, whose fabrics stand for, perhaps the nation’s finest cultural achievement, embracing some 2000 years of history.

4.1 Why London? The fascination for visiting London lies in the remnants of the Georgian, Victorian and the Edwardian periods, and of rare seventeenth-‐century and the medieval traces.76 However, most Londoners agree that the recent changes have been for the worse, both architecturally and socially. The over-‐scaled, sometimes anonymous, single use developments has crushed the delicate scale and eradicated the intricate variety that has always been very essential for London’s unique ambience77. As a settlement London barely existed before the Roman invasion in 43 AD. It has expanded steadily since its Roman foundation, but has always resisted systematic reconstruction in any one period. Notable for its looseness of structures and mainly residential fabric, the streets and squares of its housing form a background to its monumental and institutional buildings. As London has voyaged through time, its building 76

Kutcher, A., Looking at London: Illustrated Walks through a Changing City, London: Thames and Hudsons Ltd,

1978, p.114. 77

Ibid, Looking at London, p.114

types have taken up forms, sometimes following notions, and sometimes certain movements in architecture that were initiated with different conscience. London has a variety of colourful models in its built environment and it seems to be a little impossible to analyse all those buildings. Therefore, shrinking the borders for research and studies, this report will emphasize on the buildings of the 20th century London. Carefully choosing the types of buildings based on how use of colour in architecture has changed its definitions through time and mental approaches. Therefore, the study starts from the very notion of colour implementation in modern buildings and ends on a construction that features the contemporary architecture of today, in other words, from the year 1925 to 2012.

4.2 Advent of the impression of colour and pattern making Travelling from the medieval era to the times before the modernist movement, where it lost its prominence slightly, colour in architecture was always important in the sense of the built environment78. The materials for colossal buildings were carefully chosen with respect to their origins so that they had an overwhelming dominance over the buildings surrounding them, mostly the conventional houses, which used indigenous materials like slates, etc. it were only the high budget buildings that could use the essence of colours in them. Budget was a very legislative reason for this. Only important buildings were to be glorified. 78 Source: Colour in architecture URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJssMcReFQ (Accessed on

February 15 2013)

4.2.1 Grosvenor Estate, Page Street, London Time broke this notion of thinking and successive cycles of investment in the built environment brought in new waves of construction that were imagined to leave mark through morphological arrangement of architectural elements. Moreover, in 1900 London had some of the worst housing conditions in Britain. As a result the emergence of social housing arose as the need to rehouse those in the worst slums gathered some urgency79. Much of the poor housing around Page Street, was not developed for some years, and after, the Grosvenor Estate and the City Council coordinated an urgent clearance scheme. Sir Edwin Lutyens was appointed as an architect for the cleared land.

Fig 27 (A and B) : Historic image of the rear of Grosvenor Estate blocks, 1930 and historic image of balconies 81 of the Grosvenor Estate blocks, 1930

City of Westminster, Conservation Area Audit & Management Proposals, Page Street, London: City Council

2010, p.6. 80

Source: Housing on Page Street, URL:

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/workspace/assets/publications/Page_Street_CAA_SPD_2010-‐ 1288352235.pdf (Accessed on 18th February 2013) 81

Ibid (All historic images used in this report are copyright of Westminster City Archives)

The Grosvenor Estate, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, dates from the same period as Schomberg House82 but adopts a different style, with its distinctive chequer-‐board elevation treatment. Page Street Conservation Area is made up entirely of buildings of a similar period and type. All date from the early 20th century and were built as social housing to replace earlier slums in this previously overcrowded part of Westminster.

Fig 28 (A and B) : Visualizing the pattern making for the Lutyan’s facades for Page Street project.

An audit for Page Street was carried out in 2010 by the City Council London in 2010 for the review of its conservation areas. The report contained a section that provided with some history for the Grosvenor Estate housing.

Source: Images of England URL: th

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/default.aspx?pid=2&id=422689 (Accessed on 18 February 2013) 83

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

Fig 29 : Lutyens’ chequerboard scheme standing alien to the surrounding in red brick.

The outer faces of this design would have been visually austere had Lutyens not decided to apply a striking chequerboard pattern of rendered white oblongs against silver-‐ grey brick. The pattern is completed with the repetitive double hung windows that fill alternative brick panels-‐ this helps to integrate the windows into the overall composition. The effect is strikingly modernist and gives the whole complex a modular quality. This 84

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

modernist scheme and absence of detail is far removed from Lutyens’ normally traditional design approach, however, the classical details of the door cases, sash windows, neat little rusticated shops and gate piers hint that Lutyens had not completely deserted his inclination towards the classical form85.

Fig 30 : Lutyens’ use of white Portland cement and dull brown-‐grey brick as intrinsic materials for the project that was a very new idea for not using the conventional red brick.

The architecture, although varied in its detailing, is consistent in height, scale and massing, giving the blocks a strong sense of group value, not forgetting the white Portland cement87 that Lutyens used in his facades to give a distinguished character to his piece of architecture, however that leaves a griming feeling as you walk through Page street. This building marks the beginning of pattern making on building facades with use of colour that exists in the form of basic white. 85

Ibid, p.11

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

Source: White Portland Cement URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Portland_cement (Accessed on 21

February 2013)

White is the color in Western culture most often associated with beginnings and the new. Maybe this was the same reason the architect used it in his creation to mark a new beginning in built environment of the city. Also, white Portland cement was widely available in the region that allowed cutting tremendously on budget for the whole project. The estate remains largely unaltered and are included as part of the conservation area to protect the coherent relationship that exists in between Lutyens’ modernist facades and the earlier red blocks.

Fig 31 : The project stands alienated on the site, yet it gives a feeling of experimentation in the built environment.

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

4.2.2

Barking Central, East London Lutyens pattern, a mixture of silver-‐grey brick and white Portland cement for the buildings façade have attracted practices around London. However, the nature of pattern making has changed. In contrast, the making of AHMM’s Barking Central in East London plays around the same idea but with different patterns.

Fig 32 : The colourful pattern has been achieved by using hues of different colours, for instance, yellow and green.

Source: Barking Central, URL: http://www.ahmm.co.uk/projectDetails/22/Barking-‐Central?image=1 st

(Accessed on 1 May 2013)

There was a coincidence that R-‐Whites90 was there on the site and was producing bottles of lemonades since 100 years and everyone knows that their tin uses the colour green and yellow. That tin became our first touchdown for the project that changes colour from yellow to green, just exactly as the tin itself.91

Fig 33 : Observation; the colour is applied only as an accent. Considering the huge plot area for the site, too much colour could have made it phony to it. The image above shows the context of the Barking Central buildings with context to exiting buildings on the site.

This project demonstrates that the real key to city center development is in not throwing away old buildings but knitting old and new together to breathe new life into the city. Delivered in two phases over 9 years, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) master 90

Source: R-‐White Lemonade URL: http://www.britvic.com (Accessed on May 1 2013)

Monaghan, P., Colour in Architecture, World Architecture News Today, URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjVohqk16U 92

Source: Barking Central, URL: http://www.ahmm.co.uk/projectDetails/22/Barking-‐Central?image=1

(Accessed on May 1 2013)

planned and designed the buildings overcoming many challenges to create a scheme that symbolizes the regeneration of this Thames Gateway town.

In both of the building projects, the architects have tried to develop chequer-‐board

pattern, however, the first exercises with the play of intrinsic colour belonging to natural materials chosen for its construction, and the latter exercises with the usage to modern synthetic colours.

4.3 Exhibition of forcible colours The straitjacket Modernist hegemony was cracked by Post-‐Modernism93. These were the buildings from the mid-‐80s. Some emerged as a little lost in a world where even people like Terry Farrell94 also denied as part of the movement. Colour had started to be used as applied on large scale. 93

Kenneth, P., Architectural design: Diversity vs Direction?, Vol 61, Saint Martins’ Press, 1991, p.7 Farrell is a key figure and his projects markers in the development of Post-‐Modern London.

4.3.1 China Wharf, Bermondsey, London A very good example of such work is the China Wharf, 1987-‐89 by CZWG Architects.

Fig 34 : The applied colour red marked a new phase in the origination of architecture in post-‐Modernism.

This was a development of flats and offices built to fill a hole in the line of the waterfront wharfs, wedged tightly between New Concordia and Reed Wharfs. 95

Source: China Wharf, URL: http://www.czwg.com/works/china-‐wharf (Accessed on 1 May 2013)

Characteristically the architects have tried to recollect the notion of pagodas, ships and the abundant ‘wharfism’ of the Docklands by designing their red-‐arched front to the building. Writing in 1989 in the Architectural Review, Frances Anderton called this building ‘a ray of sunshine on a gloomy London dockland’. Certainly this dreary stretch of the River Thames needed a colourful, stimulating and mildly fantastic building.96

Fig 35 (A and B) : Observation; details for China Wharf, how the architect tried to blend applied red with the intrinsic brownish-‐red of brick.

However, the Post-‐modern triumph was widely criticized, considering it as a celebration of cynicism, overdevelopment and discontinuity98. At the time, the present state of the architectural profession’ aesthetic ideology strongly suggested that freeing architects from design restrictions will have horrifying results in future. 96

Moffett, N., The best of British Architecture 1980 to 2000, 1993, p. 47.

Source: CZWG Architects, URL: http://www.czwg.com/works/china-‐wharf (Accessed on 1 May 2013)

Kenneth, Powell (1991) Architectural design: Diversity vs Direction?, Vol 61, Saint Martins’ Press, p.7

4.4 Experimentations in the built environments The rise of fast track construction in the 1980s signalled a major transformation in the drives for building and brought about a homogenisation of building production largely based on maximising the commercial value of the project, often with little regard for its social value. It was not only the developments in technology that were causing great upheavals but the tempo of those developments. The texture of London life changed dramatically in the early-‐90s: mega buildings Big Bang-‐ed the city99. At one end it was becoming a city for innovative and ambitious architecture, with the design and construction of imaginative buildings of all types. And on the other hand the reaction to architecture of ideas started containing an immediate fear of the high cost ideas. Conversely, designers started believing that they have a responsibility of producing buildings of sufficiently high quality – to withstand the rigours of time and the change of the demands. As a result, the architects tended to identify very strongly with the ideal of a technically competent architecture, one in which everything that was special in the design could be justified as the result of the practical considerations and could never attribute to anything and inherently arbitrary as artistic impulse. However, imagining the world without colours seemed inevitable for them. The boom often leads to mass production in limited time and when it comes to making a name in the business, not every time one can get acknowledgements. Innovation with scarce budget started to have some surprisingly embellished results. Apart from new 99

Jencks, Charles (1991) Architectural design: Post Modern Triumphs in London, Vol 61, Saint Martins’ Press,

p.9

constructions there were projects of conservation and refurbishment, but again the architects wanted their shards to stand out and colour seemed to be the only way. 4.4.1 Hornsey Street Social Housing, Holloway, North London Highlighting the Hornsey Street Social Housing in Holloway in north London would be a good example of architecture works that might have not achieved the ambiance that the architect was thinking of during the design process. As you enter the Hornsey Street you come across splashes of colours, a brownish bricked low budgeted building, which has gone through plenty of changes through time. The way in which the building exists today is considered to be the last phases of completion that was taken over by Peter Gough, an architect for the CZWG Architects100.

Fig 36 (A and B)

101

: Observation; the choice of colour for the tinted glass on handrails.

One can observe the snake like balconies attached to the main building that is supposedly to be the living zone. Further to this, at first the handrails might have been 100

Source: CZWG Architects -‐ Key Projects URL: http://www.e-‐

architect.co.uk/architects/czwg_piers_gough.htm (Accessed 27th February 2013) 101

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

covered up with mild steel panels but then in another phase of renovation they were replaced by tinted glass. Primary and secondary colours have been used as the palette for the project.

Fig 37

102

: Observation; the impact of the building in its vicinity and the inhabitants.

Today, the building stands firm at the gateway to a number of residential schemes that run along the Hornsey Street. Some are key projects for regeneration of the area and some built to support these major housing arrangements. Where once stood orthodox structures, the use of colour was definitely changing the thinking process of the designer. Holloway road was considered to be a neglected part of London in recent past. Even the existence of London Metropolitan University couldn’t change the on-‐going regimes for years. Considering the fact that students roam around all over the place, the time came to regenerate the vicinity with tight budget residential schemes.

102

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

Fig 38

103

: View from Holloway Road

Considering aesthetic as a subjective matter, colour again was becoming a trend that could be derived from the willingness of people however; the likeness of it varies from person to person. Per Nimer 104 in an interview describes colour as a very intuitive entity of the human mind. Somebody might like red and someone might hate it. So, how do you produce buildings that may or may not attract all clients? Maybe some who want to buy a 103

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

104

Global Design Manager, Akzo Nobel

property might be turned off by the usage of colour in that particular building. How do you deal with that? If you live in a building that has colour at the outside you do not see it when you are in the house. The only time you will see is when you walk in or go out of your house. So I do not think you will say that I wouldn’t live here because the building is green or any other colour. Yes, if it is a personal residence you might not paint it in any sort of colour but in a bigger building I think it will not bother much.105 Successful and lasting visual regeneration does not come from a neat package of instructions. Each project has its own idiosyncrasies, and so the architects involved must be enormously versatile106.

4.5 An appreciation of the existing environment After almost two decades of steel and glass fronted landmarked buildings, London is seeing the use of applied colours in its built environments at a very high end. For instance, the building natures such as schools and hospitals have been using colour since long, particularly as an important part of their interior schemes, but the last few years have seen this trend extend other typologies including social housing and even the office buildings. It is of no doubt that no architect today can deny the reality of controlling expense. In practice, a steel frame with which almost everything is hung can cut down the budget for him. Sometimes with this approach, the end product is not what you wanted it to be, therefore, using colours, as accents should be kept in mind. 105 Source: Colour in architecture URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJssMcReFQ (Accessed on March 4 2013) 106

Hackney, R., The Good The Bad & The Ugly: Cities in Crisis, 1990, p. 177

4.5.1 NEO Bankside, Southwark, London The NEO Bankside by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is located on Holland Street in Southwark. In context with the site, quoting Renzo Piano, eloquently describing about the site for his project, the Shard Tower; this project is worth asking questions regarding the change in the skyline for the area. Southwark is one of those places where you can feel the layers of history: you can tell how the city has grown organically from the morphology of nature, the typography of the ground and the curve of the river. The fact is that Southwark was never actually designed: it has simply grown out of millions of single true lives… Is it possible to solve [difficult] problems without betraying the identity of these places? I think so.107 The exterior of the pavilions is encased in a lattice of “external bracing’ that references the late-‐Modern facades of the Lloyds’s building, the Centre Pompidou and other architectural exoskeletons from Richard Rogers’ past. The four pavilions of steel and glass fit perfectly into the Bankside landscape; oxide reds of the Winter Gardens echo those of Tate Modern and nearby Blackfriars Bridge, while the exterior's timber clad panels and window louvers give the building a warm, residential feeling.108

107

Powell, K., City Reborn: Architecture and Regeneration in London, from Bankside to Dulwich, London:

Merrell Publishers, 2004, p. 10 108

Littlefield, D., London (Re) Generation, Architectural Design, Vol. 82, January 2012, p.52. 62

109

Fig 39 (A, B, C) : The image above has been reproduced to highlight the powder coated red for the structural beams and columns for the project. ‘Red’ acts as accent running around the whole project and can be seen with the naked eye.

Standing today on one of the recent cultural regeneration areas of London on the, replacing an earlier plan for the site – the Tate Tower, which was defeated by the local opposition from the Tate gallery along with nearby residents in other exclusive developments like the Bankside Lofts110, a vividly yellow coloured building itself, ‘NEO Bankside’ reflects the ‘working character’ of Bankside in London’s industrial past.

Fig 40111: Panorama; Study of colour in the built environment Looking at the image above, a proposition that was put forth for a new building having accents of reds and yellows does not seem to be alien. In an event staged as part of the London Festival of Architecture, Graham Stirk delivered a lecture describing the design process of NEO Bankside from concept to construction. Graham described how the project 109 109

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

110

Harris, Andrew, Livingstone Versus Serota: The High-‐Rise battle of Bankside, The London Journal, Vol. 33,

No 3, 2008 November, p. 289-‐299 111 111

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

has developed since its inception, from the evolution of the brief with Native Land through the planning and design development process to the building currently under construction. “Looking at drama and colour relationship between various buildings, for us we wanted to be part of the urban grain but we just didn’t want be ‘another’ not just slavishly continuing to choose particular material choices, but one can still create relationships in terms of colour, and one still needs to make a statement, or one still needs to give an identity.”112

113

Fig 41

: View from Hopton Street

112

Stirk, Graham (June 24) Lecture: NEO Bankside – From Concept to Construction URL: https://vimeo.com/38102609 (Accessed on March 4 2013) 113 Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

Walking from Saint Paul’s cathedral to the Tate Modern via the millennium bridge, one can notice the cultural transition from history to the present. You are walking from the once sophisticated development to the very indigenous Bankside Power Station that is being used as a gallery for contemporary arts since year 2000 now. As you pass through its grounds, you will come across the brightly coloured yet sophisticated facades of the NEO Bankside project. The timber cladding used for spandrel panels that appear as yellow, accompanied by accents of reds that run horizontally throughout the complex, forms a very surprising yet subtle background for the gallery and the surrounding conventional houses and schemes respectively.

114

Fig 42

: View from Bear Lane

The image above reveals the fact of being known to an unknown place. One can assume that the strong reds and the pale yellows in the building seem to be borrowed from the old reddish-‐yellowish bricked buildings in the surroundings. However, the technology and the contemporary constructional approach have made it stand out and bear a very strong identity.

114

Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

“I do not know what happened to the buildings when they were easily holed down. Maybe there was a misinterpretation of the Modern movement in the nineteen-‐thirties. At what point buildings lost depths and texture? In our studies for facades, we have just tried to find things that are justifiable in terms of function and aesthetic contribution.”115 Although a highly budgeted building that is being regarded as a colossal misappropriation of resources at the time of intensifying housing shortages in London: NEO Bankside rather reveals the hubris of contemporary architectural discourse as espoused by many contemporary practitioners.116 The ebb and flow of capital investment in urban space has produced a complex layering of forms and structures so that remnants of past waves of economic prosperity, such as empty factories or workshops, are either obliterated to make new way to for new developments or converted into new uses such as galleries or luxury apartments. Since Tate Modern stands there as strict as ever therefore giving way to this new development fill is the gap for defining a good regeneration scheme.

117

Fig 43 (A and B) : Observation; the red forms the construction unit whereas yellow (timber) is used as spandrel panels.

115

Stirk, Graham (June 24) Lecture: NEO Bankside – From Concept to Construction URL: https://vimeo.com/38102609 (Accessed on March 4 2013) 116 Littlefield, David (2012 January) London (Re) Generation, Architectural Design, Vol. 82, p. 53 117 Sial, S.A., Personal Collection, Unpublished, 2013

4.6 Encroachment of ideas in construction Colour usage in the locale and abrupt surroundings extends the sense of individual’s familiarity with the nature. The use of colour in the city or place is however a combined expression. Extended to the urban field, it no longer reflects personal or subjective choices; as it confers special identity to a place. Over time with repeated usage, certain colour groups recur, becoming traditional preferences in human population. And by observing the differences among cultures in their colour expressions, one can feature them to the response of the ‘vernacular eye’. 4.6.1 Central Saint Giles Complex, Camden, London One of the recent developments in London, Central Saint Giles Complex, stands vividly as an example of Renzo Piano’s first completed building in London’s Camden borough, a short distance to the east of the east end of the famous Oxford Street. The area was once disreputable for being one of the nastiest slums in London, known as the Rookery118: a maze of ramshackle houses, alleys and courtyards inhabited by thousands of destitute people. Central Saint Giles stands on the site of St Giles Court, an office development originally erected in the 1950s and due to its grim nature it contributed to the area becoming an attraction for prostitutes and homeless. Renzo Piano Building

118

Michael Quinion – World Wide Words, Rookery URL: http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-‐ roo1.htm (Accessed on 13th March 2013)

Workshop was appointed as architects for an office and a residential scheme after the demolition of the St Giles Court building. Aiming to bring a sense of “joyous vibrancy” to the area by Centre Point, Piano proposed, cladding 20 different facets of Central Saint Giles, a mixed-‐use development by Legal & General Property and Mitsubishi Estate Company119, with red, orange, green and yellow glazed ceramic cladding120. The cladding system installed gives birth to a new landmark defined by dramatic facades of primary colours, which appear as a daring contrast to this too long ignored corner of Central London. The dramatic facades of primary colours, at first glance, appear a bold contrast to a long neglected corner of central London. When asked about he colour palette for the building, Piano replied, “The colour idea came from observing the sudden surprise given by brilliant colours in that part of the city. Cities should not be boring or repetitive. One of the reasons cities are so beautiful and a great idea, is that they are full of surprises, the idea of colour represents a joyful surprise."121

119

Easier Company – Legal & General and Mitsubishi Estate Company fund Central Saint Giles scheme (25 May 2007) URL: http://www.easier.com/33514-‐legal-‐general-‐and-‐mitsubishi-‐estate-‐company-‐fund-‐central-‐ saint-‐giles-‐scheme.html (Accessed on 13th March 2013) 120 World Architecture News -‐ Renzo’s “Joyous Vibrancy” comes to UK Capital -‐ 16 July 2009 URL: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=12035 th (Accessed on 13 March 2013) 121 Ibid

122

Fig 44

: Context of Central St Giles with its surroundings.

The building is a marked departure from the traditional palette of silvers, greys and whites. So what inspired the architect to make such a bold statement? The project architect Maurits Van Der Staay123 had an answer to it and it goes like this: “The real inspiration came from walking around the neighbourhood and seeing different hues of oranges and whites, smaller streets and then we said why not, we can have some stronger colour to help the 122

Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-st-giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013) 123 Renzo Piano Building Workshop

fragmentation. And then we started looking at rich colours. Examining the kind of colour palette will work out great together, starting off with primary colours that we wanted to use on the outer roads towards the roads.”124

Fig 45 (A and B) and whites.

125

: The colour in the facades mark a departure from the traditional palette of silvers, greys

124

Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-st-giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013) 125 Ibid

There are three main building blocks in the complex: affordable apartments, private apartments and the offices that are separated by the internal courtyard. The exuberant colours highlight them, easily traceable by users.

Fig 46 (A and B)

126

: Central piazza with light grey cladding evoking a sense of elegance.

Standing in the central piazza with the light grey cladding glinting in the sun, one can get a sense of elegance at the inside and a spark of playfulness as he sees splashes of colours at the outside. Usually, proposing a building that holds the quality of being a benchmark in a district, is often hit by questions from the site’s original owners – in this case it was the borough of Camden. The vivid colours seem to impress them as well. The client was quite enthusiastic about it but it was more difficult with the borough. We really tried our level best to convince them that introducing colour to the building will be a great idea. We had to do a lot of negotiations regarding the site’s neighborhood. With all the people and owners that owned the property around it. Explaining them why we want to do it. There

126

Ibid

were debates with the council. The mock-‐ups were displayed on the site and in the end they were all convinced by it, explains Der Staay127 While talking on the technology with which the ceramic tiles were produced, Maurits Van Der Staay gave some further information on it that I would like to quote here. He said, “The ceramic elements on the building were produced by NBK from Emmerich in Germany, and mounted on facade units produced by Schneider Fassadenbau from Stimpfach in Germany, at their factory at Wroclaw in Poland, and was shipped to the site from there. There were 18 different terracotta extrusion profiles in six different colours, with which were produced over 700 different tiles in length and colour.

The extrusions were pressed from a highly sophisticated mix of different types of clay, subsequently dried for several days, and then burned at a high temperature for around 24 hours. After being cut to size, the glazing material was brought on in liquid form, and the pieces were burnt a second time. Each extrusion was drawn specially for this project, and further technically fine-‐tuned in collaboration with NBK; each was produced, adapted and tested several times during the design process. The extrusions were arranged to obtain an articulated surface and gives the building a highly crafted appearance, which changes constantly under different daylight conditions.128

This project of glazed ceramic, made with beautiful precision and assembled with a certain complexity does seem to stand out. It's not just a sheet of applied plastic, but

127

World Architecture New – Colour in Architecture (October 18 2011) URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjVohqk16U (Accessed on March 16 2013) 128

Ibid

something with depth and richness. And, powerful though the colours are, there's judgment in their precise tones.

129

Fig 47 (A and B) : Comparison between St Giles and the existing buildings on the site. One can observe there is not even one building, which can stand close to the complex’s vibrant facades.

The ambiance created by St Giles by the use of vibrant colour breaks the Does the colour say just too much for the complex? All these questions tempt me to study another building, that might give me the answer whether vibrancy of buildings should be encouraged or not for future. 4.6.2 Royal National Theatre Building, Southbank, London

Sir Denys Lasdun, the modernist architect, designed the building. He once described

his geometric designs as "the combination of the vertical and horizontal." His buildings, with 129

Ibid

their interlocking levels and reliance on reinforced concrete, won him praise and criticism. However, unfortunately, this concrete "brutalist" structure did not meet with universal praise. Prince Charles, for example, said it was "a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting."

130

Fig 48 : The carefully refined balance between horizontal and vertical elements in Lasdun's building has been contrasted favorably with the lumpiness of neighboring buildings.

There have been mixed reviews since the time it has been standing there. As Mark Girouard131 the building as "an aesthetic of broken forms" at the time of opening. Architectural opinion was split at the time of construction. Even enthusiastic advocates of 130

Source: Royal National Theatre, URL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_National_Theatre_London_SouthBankCentre02.jpg (Accessed on 1 April 2013)

131

Information on Girouard, Mark, Archinform, URL: http://eng.archinform.net/arch/11852.htm (Accessed on 1 April 2013)

the Modern Movement such as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner have found the Béton brut concrete both inside and out overbearing.132 Despite the controversy, the theatre has been a Grade II* listed building since 1994.133 Although the theatre is often cited as an archetype of Brutalist architecture in England, since Lasdun's death the building has been re-‐evaluated as having closer links to the work of Le Corbusier, rather than contemporary monumental 1960s buildings such as those of Paul Rudolph.134

135

Fig 49 : ‘The Shed’ a temporary structure added for a year from April 2013 in contrast to the grey concrete of the theatre.

132

Royal National Theatre, Wikipedia URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre (Accessed on 1 April 2013) 133 Images of england URL: http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?pid=2&id=449659 (Accessed on April 1 2013) 134 Rykwert, J. Sir Denys Lasdun obituary, London: The Independent, January 2001 (Accessed on 1 April 2013) 135

Source: Wilkinson, D., Personal Collection.

Some critics due to its predominated in-‐situ casting of concrete, the construction with uniform grey texture, find it unappealing today; its cold appearance projecting an atmosphere of totalitarianism, as well as the association of the building with urban decay due to materials weathering poorly in London’s climate. However, to break this impulse, there are some experimentation being carried out, how to enhance the outlook by the applying faux colours. For example, ‘The Shed’ by Haworth Tompkins136 is a temporary venue in front of the Theatre celebrating new theatre that is original, ambitious and unexpected. Coloured with bright red, it provides a vicious contrast in comparison with the grey colour of concrete.

137

Fig 50 : Yellow applied, changes the Fig 51: Colour, often used for advertisement purposes context of uneven greyness.

136

Hayworth Tompkins, Official Website URL: http://www.haworthtompkins.com (Accessed on May 13 2013)

137

Source: Wilkinson, D., Personal Collection.

To end the comparison on St Giles and the National Theatre, both the buildings stand today in same city. The first providing the general public with splashes of colour to cherish and the latter reminding the same public; the building was once part of a movement; both intrinsic in their colour worth but different in appearance. The architects of today are more inclined towards making the present built environment a better place to live, however, in the past there was not much flexibility in this scheme of thought. Rather, architects kept their thinking revolve around a certain ‘Movement’.

C Conclusion To conclude, the use of colour in architecture is shifting its trends of application. Keeping the history of colours in mind, the pediments of the Greek temples were vividly coloured, therefore colour in architecture goes way back to the early origins of buildings. However, its perception keeps changing with the changing time. Before, there were always limitations in the availability and the selection of colours that is why the architecture of cities and regions all over the world has come to be associated traditionally with particular ranges of colour. And now, since intrinsic materials and synthetic paints can be imported easily from all over the world therefore built environments throughout speak a universal language. Globalization has forced architects to broaden up their creative thoughts in terms of encroaching applied colours in the well-‐chosen materials for their design proposals. I think in some areas it became really popular and exciting and in another way it became really negative. For instance, looking at some of the poorer settlements across the world, I keep mentioning the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; these slums have allowed artists to come over and experiment with their colouring ability to enhance the outlook of the area. The end result seems to be a miracle and this vision is attracting more and more visitors to the land henceforth, making the scale go high on the economy bar for the country. The migration of colours with bold splashes, springing out from an internal phenomenon to the great outdoors works out in Rio but it may not work out in metropolitan cities like London, where it is becoming a very easy thing for people to copy. 79

Walking around the Stafford High Street, one can observe very colourful facades and balconies of buildings that were hugely and badly copied in a lot of regeneration sites. Some of the practices seem to be forgetting that experimentation in architecture is not forbidden, but new buildings should be sympathetic enough to respect the surroundings I believe. Any new building must make up for the topography and space that is transformed because of its introduction and help; it creates a new nature in the place of the one that used to be there. In other words, colour in urban fabric should not be an egregious statement, it should not be part of an increasingly dubious and violent future in which civil virtues are in decline, but should be a part of structural continuity that helps bind society together and retain existing values. The positive side of colour in the built environment is that it has made buildings more populist; it has made designers think harder how to communicate a building to the general public. It is bringing home the meaning of individualizing buildings. It is making ways for them to get away from greys, whites and silvers of nineteen-‐sixties and seventies. Moreover, the application of colour is also changing with new technologies. In low budget constraints, where a possibility of using standard materials emerges; colour is helping architects in transforming the same ordinary material and its application without costing too much of money. With the advent of more durable and flexible materials coupled with technology and having vastly available affordable choices, more and more architects, and indeed clients are daring to make bold statements with colour in the present built environment. It may not be to everyone’s taste but technology is paving towards a bright and colourful future.

When talking about technology, the use of ceramic tiles acquired in unexpected shapes and colours today, the manufacturing of the coloured glass usually used in glazed facades in construction today, and then colour changing systems introduced by Versatile138 are bringing in revolution in this whole scheme of narrating a built environment. It seems like a shift that was nowhere before until recently almost five years ago. Architectural design is always about the future; architects are making propositions assuming that it takes place in some imagined future. Architects nearly always assume that this future will be ‘better’ than the present. Architecture is, by its very nature, utopian. When they talk about a lot of usage of colour in the educational works and social housing projects, what they mean is that this leaf of architecture was always neglected in the past. An important reason was the lower value of money was involved in them. But now the games are changing, you can create a very beautiful building with the use of colour and can achieve the required results with an affordable budget. Besides, I think when you are looking at some building; your eye seeks for colours, and it sees materials. But you do not react to a material in a way you react to applied colour to some surface. The applied colour holds some drama for the observer to investigate. In the case studies’ section of this report, I have tried to provide a narration to colour in the built environment of the city London, United Kingdom. I have tried to search its possibilities of application in terms of availability, budget, production and technology. You can see a steady evolution; firstly in the form of fundamentals, then as a part of a certain movement and at the end part of changing trends in the language of construction.

138

Official Website URL: http://www.foreverchangingcolour.com (Accessed on April 1 2013)

At the end, a building used by many people, whatever the scale, ought to be designed not as an isolated work but as a part of something larger. In other words it should bear the quality of urbanity. The city is a changing multi-‐faceted entity that encompasses even things that are in opposition to it. Within this thesis, colour is considered to be an essential element for creating meaningful, humane environments. Therefore, in a world that is becoming all the more homogenous, this report has looked for the role that colour plays in creating a sense of place.

D Bibliography Books -‐

Batchelor, D., Chromophobia, London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2000.

-‐

Birren, F., Light, Color, and Environment, USA: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1983.

-‐

Garfield, S., Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World. Faber and Faber, 2000.

-‐

Goethe, J.W., Theory of Colors, London: John Murray, 1984.

-‐

Gombrich, EH, (1979,1984) A Sense of Order, Phaidon, London.

-‐

Hackney, R., The Good The Bad & The Ugly: Cities in Crisis, 1990.

-‐

Herbert Y.P.MA., Pacific Island, 1996.

-‐

Hutchings, J., Colour in Folklore, Folklore society, London

-‐

Kassinger, Ruth G., Dyes: From Sea Snails to Synthetics, 21st century, February 2003.

-‐

Kutcher, A., Looking at London: Illustrated Walks through a Changing City, London: Thames and Hudsons Ltd, 1978.

-‐

Lancaster, M., Colourscape, London: Academy Editions, 1996.

-‐

Lenclose, J-‐P and Lenclose, D., Colors of the World – A Geography of Color, W W Norton & Company Incorporation, 2004.

-‐

Lenclose, J-‐P, The Geography of Colour, Tokyo: San’ei Shobo Publishing Company, 1989.

-‐

Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: McGraw-‐Hill, 1930.

-‐

Mahnke, Frank, H., Colour, Environment and Human Response: An interdisciplinary understanding of colour and its use as a beneficial element in the design of the Architectural Environment, U.S.A: Van Nostrand, 1996.

-‐

Moffett, N., The best of British Architecture 1980 to 2000, 1993.

-‐

Osborne, R., Lights and Pigments, London: John Murray, 1984. 83

-‐

Pastoureau, M., Blue: The History of a Color, Princeton University Press, 1st October 2001.

-‐

Peerzada, S., K-‐Architecture, Pakistan: Black olive publication, 2009.

-‐

Porter, T., Colour Outside, Architectural press, 1982.

-‐

Porter, T. and Mikellides, B., Colour for Architecture, London: Studio Vista, 1976.

-‐

Porter, Tom and Mikellides, B., Colour for Architecture Today, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009.

-‐

Rossotti, H., Colour: Why the World Isn't Grey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1983.

-‐

Ruskin, J., The Stones of Venice, Cambridge: Da Capo Press, March 1985.

-‐

Stierlin, H., (ed.) The Spirit of Colours: The Art of Karl Gerstner, Cambridge: Mass M.I.T Press, 1981.

-‐

Swirnoff, L., The Color of Cities: An International Perspective, McGraw – Hill Professional Publishing, February 2003.

-‐

Swirnoff, L., Dimensional Color, London: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2003.

-‐

Swirnoff, L., The Color of Cities: An International Perspective, McGraw – Hill Professional Publishing, February 2003.

Articles and Journals -‐

City of Westminster, Conservation Area Audit & Management Proposals -‐ Page Street. 2010.

-‐

Harris, A., Livingstone Versus Serota: The High-‐Rise battle of Bankside, The London Journal, Vol. 33, No 3, 2008 November.

-‐

Jencks, C., Architectural design: Post Modern Triumphs in London, Vol 61, Saint Martins’ Press, 1991.

-‐

Kenneth, P., Architectural design: Diversity vs Direction?, Vol 61, Saint Martins’ Press, 1991.

-‐

Littlefield, D., London (Re) Generation, Architectural Design, Vol. 82, January 2012.

-‐

Powell, K., City Reborn: Architecture and Regeneration in London, from Bankside to Dulwich, London: Merrell Publishers, 2004.

-‐

Rykwert, J. Sir Denys Lasdun obituary, London: The Independent, January 2001.

Websites -‐

-‐ -‐

-‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐

Can colour really change how we view the world?, URL: http://imagine.change.co.uk/2013/04/can-‐you-‐use-‐colour-‐to-‐mask-‐a-‐problem/ (Accessed on 25th November 2012) Street of Color Guanajuato, URL: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/street-‐of-‐ color-‐guanajuato-‐4-‐olden-‐mexico.html (Accessed on 25th November 2012) United Colours of Jodhpur, URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travellingtom/54960562/ (Accessed on 3rd March 2013) Colourtechnology.org.uk URL: http://www.colourtechnology.org/ (Accessed on 28th November 2012) Tarling Regeneration, East London URL: http://www.s333.org (Accessed on 28th November 2012) th Wansey Street, URL: http://drmm.co.uk/projects/wansey-‐street/ (Accessed on 28 November 2012) th

Tarling East,URL: : http://modernarchitecturelondon.com/pages/tarling-‐east.php (Accessed on 28 November 2012) Tyrian Purple, URL: http://www.green-‐lion.net/colour_purple.html (Accessed on 2nd February 2013) nd Miracle of the Slave, URL: http://www.polomuseale.venezia.beniculturali.it (Accessed on 2 February 2013) White Lead, URL: http://drawpaintsculpt.com/blog/the-‐lara-‐palette-‐lead-‐white-‐and-‐its-‐significance/ nd (Accessed on 2 February 2013) nd Egyptian blue, URL: http://www.99colors.net/name/egyptian-‐blue, (Accessed on 2 February, 2013)

-‐

-‐ -‐ -‐

Prussian Blue, URL: http://www.colorcombos.com/colors/00304A (Accessed 2nd February, 2013) Mother of all HTML Colour chart, URL: http://tx4.us/mr/mr000.htm (Accessed on 2nd February 2013) Mauvine, URL: http://www.rsc.org/Chemsoc/Activities/Perkin/2006/minisite_perkin_mauveine_non_flash.html (Accessed on 2nd February 2013) Siena, URL: http://tx4.us/nbs/nbs-‐s.htm (Accessed on 3rd February 2013) Light and Colours Facts, URL: http://someinterestingfacts.net/light-‐and-‐colours-‐facts/ (Accessed on rd 3 February 2013) rd Pigment, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigment#cite_note-‐13 (Accessed on 3 February 2013) Assumption of the Virgin, URL: http://www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian16.html (Accessed on 3rd February 2013 ) th Munsell, URL: http://munsell.com (Accessed on 4 February 2013) Munsell System, URL: http://spie.org/x33063.xml (Accessed on 4th February 2013) Colour in architecture URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJssMcReFQ (Accessed on February 15 2013)

-‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐

Rossotti, H., Colour: Why the World Isn't Grey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1983.

-‐

-‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐

Housing on Page Street, URL: https://www.westminster.gov.uk/workspace/assets/publications/Page_Street_CAA_SPD_2010-‐ 1288352235.pdf (Accessed on 18th February 2013) Images of England URL: http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/default.aspx?pid=2&id=422689 th (Accessed on 18 February 2013) White Portland Cement URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Portland_cement (Accessed on 21 February 2013) Barking Central, URL: http://www.ahmm.co.uk/projectDetails/22/Barking-‐Central?image=1 (Accessed st on 1 May 2013) R-‐White Lemonade URL: http://www.britvic.com (Accessed on May 1 2013) Monaghan, P., Colour in Architecture, World Architecture News Today, URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjVohqk16U China Wharf, URL: http://www.czwg.com/works/china-‐wharf (Accessed on 1 May 2013) CZWG Architects, URL: http://www.czwg.com/works/china-‐wharf (Accessed on 1 May 2013) CZWG Architects -‐ Key Projects URL: http://www.e-‐architect.co.uk/architects/czwg_piers_gough.htm (Accessed 27th February 2013)

-‐

Colour in architecture URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WJssMcReFQ (Accessed on March 4 2013)

-‐

Stirk, Graham (June 24) Lecture: NEO Bankside – From Concept to Construction URL: https://vimeo.com/38102609 (Accessed on March 4 2013) Rookery URL: http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-‐roo1.htm (Accessed on 13th March 2013) Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-‐st-‐giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013) Central St Giles, London: Architecture Information, URL: http://archinect.com/firms/project/66019270/central-‐st-‐giles/66021384 (Accessed on 15th March 2013) World Architecture New – Colour in Architecture (October 18 2011) URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjVohqk16U (Accessed on March 16 2013) Royal National Theatre, URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_National_Theatre_London_SouthBankCentre02.jpg (Accessed on 1 April 2013) Hayworth Tompkins, Official Website URL: http://www.haworthtompkins.com (Accessed on May 13 2013)

-‐ -‐

-‐

-‐ -‐

-‐