Black

‘...and in Greece the Parthenon, marked the pinnacle of the pure creation of the mind: contour modulation...

There is nothing like it in the architecture of all the world and all time...
It is the moment of utmost acuity when a man, moved by the noblest thoughts, crystallized them in a plastique of light and shadow...’
Le Corbusier, on the Parthenon, in ‘Vers Une Architecture’ ( Towards a new architecture)

Parthenon sculptures were colored blue, red and greenSaturday, February 25, 2006ATHENS - AFP
Its austere white is on every postcard, but the Athens Parthenon was originally daubed with red, blue and green, the Greek archaeologist supervising conservation work on the 2,400-year-old temple said on Friday.
“A recent cleaning operation by laser revealed traces of hematite [red], Egyptian blue and malachite-azurite [green-blue] on the sculptures of the western frieze,” senior archaeologist Evi Papakonstantinou-Zioti told the Agency France-Presse.While archaeologists had found traces of the first two colors elsewhere on the temple years ago, the malachite-azurite coloring was only revealed in the latest restoration process, Papakonstantinou-Zioti said.
Given the testimony of ancient writers, it is not unlikely that the Parthenon’s trademark columns were also colored, she added.

When I was at the AA, I had attended a couple of lectures that Mark Cousins gave on surface and ornament. In those, he brought out how the use of colour was looked upon with suspicion by the early modernists. Even when some modernists highlighted the high degree of refinement in Greek architecture, it was thought to be in monochromatic white marble, and all evidence that it was actually profusely painted was ignored. Greek architecture was thought of, as the achievement of perfection in proportion and form, manifested in pristine white marble, and revealed in a play of light and shadow in the bright Mediterranean sun.

It was almost in denial, that people acknowledged studies that showed traces of elaborate paint work over the Parthenon and other Greek architecture. Somehow, the appliqué of paint as decoration, and refinement in architecture did not go together.

Early modernism, to a large extent, remained white or in shades of grey or at the most with some splashes of primary colours. The colours, when used, were almost always to set off the white. Architecture was regarded as form and space making, the coming together of forms to create space, and colour somehow did not fit in.

Architecture has always battled the perception of being regarded as merely visual. The optic is the most dominant of all our senses, and many perceptions we have of reality and truth are based largely on our visual sense (seeing is believing). That is also why, the visual is regarded as a more baser, a more immediate , and architects have often sought to overcome this bias, tried to involve our other senses. Often a successful piece of architecture is one that is multi-sensory, that evokes feelings in an individual that are not merely visual. Space is to be felt, not merely to be seen.

The stepwells of gujurat, for example, involve a truly multisensory experience. The coolness of air as one descends, the touch of stone, the gradation of light and the gradual erosion of environmental noise as one goes lower into the ground.

Thus, colour when used in architecture, seems to reinforce and acknowledge the merely visual within architecture, the surface treatment, and colour is almost equated with ornament. The modern society equated ornament with crime, most famously in Adolf Loos’ seminal book of essays, Ornament and Crime – ‘The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects.’ Ornament was regarded as a wasteful expenditure of human resource, in a society that equated time with money. In his book, Loos invests a culture of minimalism, with moral, economic and social superiority.

When I went to the AA for the DRL program in ’99, I immediately felt out of place in my clothing, although my wardrobe had always been very conservative when it came to colour. It took me one and a half terms to come to terms with the western architects dress code – black.

Everything at the AA is almost monochromatic, the way people dress, as well as the white bare walls of 36 Bedford square that become backdrops for countless exhibitions. Colour, when used for walls, is always transient and part of exhibition displays. The furniture, including the cafe/ bar counter ( as well as the other equally important counter - the library counter) is also black. In this sea of black and grey tones, any colour sticks out. It took me a good four months to adjust to the new code, and it did not go unnoticed. Once, when i walked into the bar, four months into the course, Brett Steele commented to Patrick Schumacher – ‘ Hey, He’s one of us now!’.

It took me eight months to come out of the black fixation once I was back in India, But still after 6 years or so, the after taste lingers. In India, where the climate doesn’t allow the total embrace of black, and the overall landscape is too populated with people in bright colours that celebrate the bright sunshine, the intellectuals among architects defined their own dress code during the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. A whole dress code of Fabindiasque Khadi and cotton wear, with earthy colours defined the progressive Indian architect as someone, who is inspired by a left leaning world view, and who dresses like he designs – climatologically attuned to the harsh climate, in an eco- friendly way embracing natural materials, colour and textures, and embracing technologies that were indigenous and capable of generating employment at the grass-roots.

Back at the AA, I found it amazing to find Brett in his Hugo Boss, or Patrick (Schumacher) wearing his flamboyant fur coats and body hugging black tees. It was a revelation to someone who was brought up on a diet of the Kanades in their Khadis. The Henry Ford model T dress code (any colour as long as its black) was everywhere.

Among the few architects who dressed colourfully and lectured at the AA, was Louise Hutton of Sauerbruch Hutton, and these are one of the most sophisticated architects when it comes to the use of colour (www.sauerbruchhutton.de). Colour for Sauerbruch and Hutton is an important aspect of their architecture. Another was Will Alsop.

Bernard Tschumi lectured at the AA while I was there, and I couldn’t get into the main hall for the lecture as it was too crowded. I, along with some friends, watched him speak from the bar, where a screen had been put up. Bernard Tschumi wore black, but with one of the brightest of red scarves (Parc la Villete Red) which I have seen. The colour of the scarf dominated the whole screen, much in the same way the red dominates in many Tschumi buildings.

So, why do architects wear black? There is also a new book by this name - Why do architects wear black? By Cordula Rau.

( An industry manager who left his white-blue, silver-shimmering world of car bodywork and dove into the pitch-black, mysterious world of architecture for the first time during a competition asked me one day: “Ms Rau, why do architects actually wear black?” Although I was wearing black and I am an architect I didn’t have a spontaneous answer, so I responded: “Ask the other architects!” That was in 2001, and it is why this small book came to be. I have asked the question at an international level and whenever it seems appropriate ever since. The sometimes amusing and other times programmatic or hair-splitting answers I have received over the last seven years are listed chronologically in this little black volume. Read, and please, don’t ask me why architects wear black! – Cordula Rau, 22. 02. 2008 )

Andrew Benjamin, during one of his crit sessions with us, while conducting a workshop, commented that architects wear black, because they do not want to commit to any specific colour, they are in denial about colour. They therefore dress in tonal shades. That is why they design in white and grey and wear black.