THREAD: Colour in architecture is 2 often avoided & feared, which is a recent & silly tendency, becos its the most powerful tool we have in creating beautiful, impactful & effective atmospheres thru design. Even the ancients knew this, & their buildings were all brightly coloured

The last image was The News Building, Athens, Georgia, by Allan Greenberg from 1992. This is a reconstructed color scheme of the entablature on a Doric temple.

Its not mainstream to use colour with vigour & joy these days, but some designers manage to deploy it well, from public transport infrastructure to towers and interiors both sacred & profane, I’ll slowly be sharing a smorgasbord of examples to tickle the palatte & inspire

This & the last image are of the 'Università' underground station, Napoles, by Alessandro Mendini and Karim Rashid, 2011. Images unknown source

The Dan Hotel, Tel Aviv, 1953, facade rebuilt in 1986 to the design of artist Yaacov Agam.
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Photo copyright Alamy via http://www.cntraveler.com 

Will Alsop’s ecstatically staccato Colorium in Dusseldorf, Germany, 2002. Images unknown source

The masterful polychromatic decorative scheme of the New York Central Synagogue, Henry Fernbach, 1870-2

Supergraphics by Mary Ann Rumney in the Murray House, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969

Temple of All Religions, containing an Orthodox church, a mosque, and a synagogue, among other religious spaces. Staroye Arakchino Microdistrict, Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia, 1992-unfinished.

Image from http://russiatrek.org 

Reconstruction of the interior of the 16th Century Gwoździec synagogue, one of the many wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe, all of which were lost in the Holocaust.

Museum at Prairiefire, Overland Park, KS, USA, Verner Johnson, 2017. Photos by Sam Fentress

The Brandhorst Museum in Munich by Sauerbruch Hutton, 2005-9. Second photo by the architects

Ohtake Cultural Center by Ruy Ohtake, Sao Paolo, 2004. Image unknown source

The exquisitely crafted, beautifully designed, civically minded, urbane and just delightful VCA End of trip facilities at Melbourne University by @SXWArchitecture 2019

Edmund & Corrigan’s fabulous Melbourne RMIT Building number 8, from 1993, part of an architectural treasure trove of a campus and progenitor of much later genius by many other architects

Maishima Incineration & Power Plant, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Osaka 2000-2004.

Kuggen ("The cog"), Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg/Göteborg, Wingårdh Arkitektkontor, (Gert Wingårdh, Jonas Edblad, Charlotte Erdegard and Danuta Nielsen), 2011. Photo by Lindman via Archdaily

Hoechst AG Technical Administrative Building, Peter Behrens, 1924
Images via Reddit & Pinterest

Airport Hotel Berlin
PetersenArchitekten, 2012. Photo by Jan Bitter via Archello

Union Trust Building, Wirt C. Rowland of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, Detroit, 1929. Images unknown source

Casa Gilardi, Mexico City
Luis Barragán, 1976. Images unknown source

James Stirling & Michael Wilford’s Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, 1988. First image via Pinterest, 2nd: https://www.s-wert-design.de/produkt/wissenschaftszentrum/

Ricardo Bofill’s Walden 7, Barcelona, 1975. Images from: https://www.archdaily.com/332142/ad-classics-walden-7-ricardo-bofill

Ricardo Bofill’s La Murala Roja from 1968 https://www.archdaily.com/332438/ad-classics-la-muralla-roja-ricardo-bofill

Olaias Metro Station, Lisbon, Tomas Taveira, 1998. Photo by Paolo Bastos

Aveiro Stadium, Portugal, 2003, Tomás Taveira. Images unknown source

Various designs by Emmanuelle Moureaux in Tokyo

Pavilion in the Site of Reversible Destiny, Yoro Park in Gifu, 1995, Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins
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Images unknown source

Reversible Destiny Lofts, Shusaka Arakawa & Madeline Gins, Tokyo, 2005. Photos by Margherita Visentini from: http://www.polpettas.com/reversible-destiny-lofts-mitaka-tokyo/

Various buildings by Fernando Peixoto, Bahia, Brazil

The Habitrail Garage, East Lansing, Michigan. Aka 'the Hampster Cage'.

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Blasius.

Motisons Jewelry Building, Jaipur, Rajasthan, Kothari Associates, 2013

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Mansilla+Tuñón Arquitectos, 2005. Image unknown source

I have visited hundreds, possibly even thousands of churches in my life, but Butterfield’s All Saints (1850-9) is 1 of the few that I keep going back 2 again & again, & which each and every time, in its perfect polychromy, manages to momentarily remedy something broken inside me

Canteen of the former Headquarters of the Spiegel Publishing House, Verner Panton, 1969, Hamburg
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Photos by Michael Bernhardi, SPIEGEL-Verlag, 2011

Varna Restaurant, Arhus. Verner Panton, 1971.
Images via Verner Panton Design

Pool of the Raleigh Hotel, Miami, called the most beautiful in America by Life Magazine in 1947

Alliance Franco-Senegalaise, Kaolack, Dakar, Senegal, Patrick Dujarric, 1994

Mangyongdae children’s palace, Pyongyang, photo from Model City Pyongyang by cristiano bianchi and kristina drapić

Floor of the publishing house Salzburger Nachrichten, Gio Ponti, Austria, 1967

The Ark of architectural delight & fecundity that is the Judge Institute by John Outram, Cambridge, 1991-5

Cambridge University being quite a conservative place, Outram was restrained there in his use if colour, however in Duncan Hall at Rice University in Houston, he was allowed to do as he wished... 1996
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Photo by Jay Lee on Flickr, link: https://flickr.com/photos/baldheretic/25799615358

Storm Water Pumping Station, Isle of Dogs, London, John Outram, 1987-88

Image from https://regencysociety.org/form-maker/ducks-and-decorated-sheds-shaping-the-postmodern-legacy-lecture/1988-john-outram-the-storm-water-pumping-station-isle-of-dogs-1987-88-2/

An article I wrote about it for Icon Magazine in 2017

This is the central spiral staircase inside Mendini sometimes polemically, wildly dissolved forms through a pontilist use of granular colour

Stairs in the Groninger Museum, Alessandro Mendini, 1990-4

Photo by fototon2010 on Flickr

The Red Devils in Almere, the Netherlands, by dok architects, 1994-8

Images unknown source

Tour LU, Nantes, Auguste Bluysen, 1909

Images unknown source

Oblomov at Hotel Il Palazzo, Fukuoka, Japan, Shiro Kuramata, 1989

Ne'eman Towers complex, Tel Aviv, Israel, Canaan Shenhav, 2002-13, colour scheme by Yaacov Agam

Image unknown source

The voluptuously luminous, saturated darkness of John Loughborough Pearson’s Fitzrovia Chapel in London