COLOUR
MEMORIES
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COLOUR
C O L O U R M E M O R I E S
SPONSORED BY AXALTA
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We remember in colour. But a lot of time the we don’t realise it. We only tend to notice colour in our memories when it was particularly striking or was itself the thing we remember: a white sandy beach, the flickering light of Venice or the exuberant colours of a street market. We remember in colour because we experience the world in colour. It’s the same with architecture. All architecture has colour, even if this is simply the raw or natural colour of its materials. But this does not necessarily mean that all architecture is colourful. Far from it in fact. Throughout architectural history, actively colourful buildings have tended to be the exception – or at least have been made to appear so in the standard histories. And where and when colourful buildings do exist, they are often overlooked, denigrated or even ridiculed. This exhibition takes the opposing view. It celebrates colour in architecture and explores its centrality to the work of a range of contemporary practitioners each of whom has a distinctive position on how and why they use it. The range of work on show in the exhibition illustrates one of ironies of colour’s marginalisation in architectural practice and discourse: the reasons that are typically cited for ignoring and side-lining colour are actually why it is so important. Rather than aiming for timelessness, colour enables architecture to be responsive to the here and now. In contrast to the earnestness and over-seriousness that characterises so much of contemporary architecture, colour allows architects to create designs that are joyful and irreverent. And instead of being banished to the frequently feminised domain of interior design, as has frequently been the case over history, colour is integral to creating an open and pluralist architectural culture that reflects all identities. Whether it is natural or synthetic, or transcends that distinction entirely, colour locates architecture in a specific time and place, which takes us back to memory. Colour is what makes memories come alive and it does the same with architecture, bringing a sense of joy, personality and individuality to buildings of all types and scales – as well as being a little bit fun. Owen Hopkins - Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University |
01. Abre Etteh
02. Afterparti
03. Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
04. Asif Khan
05. Atelier La Juntana
06. Beasley Dickson Architects
07. Charles Holland Architects
08. Citizens Design Bureau
09. Freehaus
10. Hawkins\Brown Architects
11. Morris+Company
12. Nimtim Architects
13. Office S&M
14. Soda
15. Studio Aki
16. Studio Mutt
17. Unscene Architecture
18. VPPR Architects
19. WilkinsonEyre
20. Zaha Hadid Design
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ABRE ETTEH
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© Fiona Cuypers-Stanienda
AFTERPARTICOLOUR MEMORY BY THOMAS AQUILINA
Afterparti is a collective of nine London-based writers founded in March 2019 to champion radical, underrepresented voices within the culture and criticism of architecture. We explore big ideas about the built environment through the lenses of identity and race. We curate live events on themes like failure and power. These events are then followed by a zine, also called Afterparti, which acts as a platform to further develop the conversation and as a space to document our thoughts and experiences. Colour sets the tone of our serial outputs and guides our conceptual approach. While our graphical identity is largely shaped by the aesthetics of writing, we use colour to be both playful and provocative. Our prototype series, The Time for Failure is Now, was defined by the colour yellow: bright and emerging. This was followed by the series, For the Love of Power, where we adopted the colour of love, blood and revolution: red. In a sense, colour marks the evolution of our collective and defines the chapters in this journey. |
Afterparti - For the Love of Power © Brydn Webb
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ALLFORD HALL MONAGHAN MORRISCOLOUR MEMORY BY PAUL MONAGHAN
Our practice has experimented with the use of colour for the last 30 years. Whilst we’ve used bold colours, subtle colours and almost always a variation in hue that gives more depth to its use. However, I have always come back to green and in particular darker greens.
I noticed early in our work that trying to get a consensus in colour choice was near impossible but somehow “greens” always seemed to win the day. Perhaps it’s the relationship with nature and as such is imbued with tranquillity and healthy living. I do not have a particular favourite RAL reference colour because I prefer to keep searching for richer tones. I do however have a favourite material to employ which is ceramic. The richness and variation that such glazing permeates allows for a more natural finish and variation. For this reason my colour memory would be the rich tiling found in Victorian public buildings and pubs. They are used in a limited palette as accents to the streetscape and because of the resilience of ceramic remain looking new even after 100 years of use. |
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© Atelier La Juntana
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ATELIER LA JUNTANAARMOR GUTIERREZ RIVAS
Armor is an architect, researcher and maker, working and living in between Santander and London. After working for some of the world’s most distinguished architecture firms such as Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in Copenhagen, MVRDV in Rotterdam or KPF in London, in 2017 he founded Atelier La Juntana, a workshop focusing on the design and manufacture of innovative architecture solutions exploring the boundary between traditional craft and digital design. As a result of his work with multiple materials, craft techniques and construction methods he has developed a broad understanding of the possibilities and constrain behind the making process. Since 2014 he organizes, in collaboration with Madrid Polytechnic University of Architecture, a Summer School which welcomes over 100 international students each session sharing a common interest on the topic of making and creative fabrication. In 2018 he was selected, as part of an international interdisciplinary team, to deliver the concept and content of Montenegrian Pavilion for the Architecture Exhibition Venice Biennale. Since 2017 he has run a Master in Architecture design studio at the University of East London. |
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Beasley Dickson Architects team photo
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BEASLEY DICKSON ARCHITECTSCOLOUR MEMORY BY MELISSA BEASLEY, DAVID DICKSON, AND BEN SHAW
My first fountain pen. Representing a marker in the progression through childhood, proof that your handwriting was acceptable. The journey from pencil to pen was complete. It meant ownership of your most valued possession and allowed you to write and draw more quickly. A vivid experience, tracking your lines, taking pride in the marks you made on the page. The ink, free flowing, provided a limitless blue horizon, the backdrop and start to any act or story. The colour of the ink had depth and variation, the letters bound in cursive union. The colour of handwriting, of endless and unlimited adolescent imagination. Rituals followed in changing the cartridge and rinsing the nib, inky fingers as blue blood poured, swirling and expanding in the water and curling down the drain. The flow of ink creates mistakes and unknowns - it is less controllable. Puddles form. Unpredictability enters. The space between lines becomes more subtle as pigment spreads and bleeds. Blue, the colour of beyond, in ink becomes the conveyor of the ordinary, and the ordinary is elevated. Fountain pen blue ink sketch of blue oiled Douglas fir timber framed and clad extension.
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CITIZENS DESIGN BUREAUCOLOUR MEMORY BY KATY MARKS
This was the first holiday I went on with my now husband - on the Isle of Harris in the outer Hebrides. We had the whole of Luskentyre beach to ourselves and free camped. The colour of the sea was inexplicably beautiful. I got up early each day cooked breakfast on the stove and wandered through the grass down to swim in the sea. Sitting on my camping log, with the layering of swaying green grass, pristine sand and cyan water and the mountains of Lewis stretching out in front of me is a memory that is very special. It is also a memory that has heightened my awareness of the way in which colour and texture work together. There’s not really such a thing as pure colour. Our perception of it is so influenced by its texture, the way it catches light and the way it moves. |
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FREEHAUSCOLOUR MEMORY BY JONATHAN HAGOS Colours faded by sunlight, whether in reality or on the surface of the photographic prints depicting my childhood, are to me, seeped in nostalgia. No colour captures this more than the faded orange that defines my earliest memories. It was the colour of my parents Opal Kadett, parked outside the first home that I can remember. Orange was the colour of my early visits to the Netherlands, the country of my birth. My godfather lived in a beautifully decorated apartment in Amsterdam. Johan de Boer, my ‘Opa’ as I called him, was a furniture designer and his home was a palette of rich timbers, rattan, and the type of orange hard plastic that defined the late 70’s. The faded orange reminds me of him and the warm light that filtered through the tall windows of his home. The colour also captures the pale sunrise pattern of the Holland football team’s kit at the 1988 Euros. I remember watching Marco van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard, sweeping emphatically past the rest -including a great England team - to the final where they lifted the trophy in a wash of orange, amongst a healthy sprinkling of mullets, dreadlocks and moustaches. I was smitten! 
Opal Kadett - Jonathan Hagos
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FREEHAUSCOLOUR MEMORY BY TOM BELL
I spent my formative years in Hong Kong, where I vividly recall the unique and ever changing built urban landscape set against high green peaks and a dancing green sea. I recall daily walks in the hills with my father and our dog after school. I remember the moments we would stop to perch on little rocky outcrops for rest and witness the theatre of construction below. Mountains were moved, seas were reclaimed and the thud of piling always carried in the air. I recall our favourite game was crane counting. Who could spot the most? Nothing sat still, and slowly but surely shiny tall buildings would appear from the dust bunched tightly to the shore. I am also the son of a pilot, so air travel and cockpit rides (in a time when they were allowed) were a thing of the norm. These flights and experiences have etched an indelible birds eye view of the city and its partner of green on my mind. They also sparked an elemental interest in architecture and the built environment. This is my memory of green and a place I called home. Hong Kong images - Tom Bell
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RAINHAM INNOVATION HUBWith support from the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund, we were appointed to retrofit an industrial unit that will empower local businesses to explore and aopt new technologies in their workflows. Our ambition is to develop a forward-thinking design that encourages connectivity and acts as a catalyst for crossovers.
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HAWKINS \ BROWNI always felt red was the colour that best represented London. The Routemaster, Gillbert Scott’s telephone boxes and London underground roundel are recognised in part because of this colour. Some say that the fire of London in 1666, so vast and ferocious that the red hot embers were seen from far and wide, the colour still sits in the consciousness of Londoners many generations on.
However one of the spaces that I’m drawn to again and again is the small drawing room in Pitzhanger Manor, situated in Ealing and designed by Sir John Soane in 1804, another example of where colour has been utilised to evoke memory and emotion. The internal wall’s bright Pompeii red, based with a warm timber floor, connects to the adjoining library and vestibule. The space always manages to catch the visitor's eyes through not only the red walls but also the drawings presented within Sir John Soane’s personal Hogarth collection, The Rake’s Progress. The rooms play with colour is notable, due to its connection with classism, the original colour of Pompeii red starts life as a yellow hue, transforming into the dark red as we know now through the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. Small Drawing Room – Pitzhanger Manor, Sir John Soane
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Morris+CompanyCOLOUR MEMORY BY HARRIET BRISLEY
Locked down in London, within my four white walls, white page before me. My mind drifts to memories of home & the North East Coast. South Gare & Coatham Dunes stretching before us. Stepping from the crumbling tarmac road to the sand, we meander through desire paths worn into the landscape. Rustling grasses swaying, golden green in the wind. The view opening out to the North Sea: steely blue, glacial and shimmering, softened by the warm pink glow of the fading evening light. A place of contrast. Set against the ghostly industrial backdrop of what were once thriving steel & chemical works & ship building yards - a reminder for many, of our family’s industrial heritage. Now a post-apocalyptic scene of grey & red rusting towers, chimneys, weaving pipelines, warehouses & scarred landscape. Resting at the mouth of the River Tees, a place of ‘natural’ beauty, all is not what it may seem. An area made by man, formed from waste of the local steel industry, now reclaimed by nature, with wild flora and fauna forcing their way to the surface. A scene of resilience and hope. The loss of industry has brought with it huge socio-economic impact, but perhaps the tide is turning as the council take their first steps towards a more sustainable industrial future. Cultivating the area to bring about a greater balance between man & nature. |
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© Megan Taylor
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NIMTIM ARCHITECTS
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OFFICE S&M
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Laura Russell © R Shiret
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SODACOLOUR MEMORY BY LAURA RUSSELL
My childhood was spent in Valencia on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. My early recollections are therefore filled with sunshine, happy memories and vibrant colours. After over 20 years of living in London, we used the latest lockdown as an opportunity to spend some time in my birth town to reconnect with my roots. One colour that took me back to my childhood days is the colour of the earth in the countryside near my home. I remember family weekends spent there; the reddish pigment of the soil impregnated on the soles of my trainers and the sun scorched rocks crumbling underfoot. Varying from a deep saturated red in the soil to the dusky pink of the rocks on the cliff sides I have always been in awe of such beautiful colours against the luscious green vegetation. So many everyday objects have derived from this natural resource – from humble cookware and roof tiles to clay “celosia” facades - each and every instance calling to my subconscious thoughts. Only now do I begin to understand my weakness for this colour. |
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© Nick Guttridge
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STUDIO AKI
Colour memory painting 5
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STUDIO MUTT ARCHITECTSStudio Mutt is an energetic architecture and design studio working across culture and identity, placemaking and public realm. Our ambition is to create joyful projects to make everyday life better.
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COLOUR MEMORIES BY GRAHAM BURN, JAMES CRAWFORD & ALEX TURNER
Universal Works, an independent contemporary menswear company, appointed Studio MUTT in 2017 as architect and creative partner for their future stores. The brief was to determine how an approach to clothing can translate into an approach to architecture, which in turn could be tailored to numerous sites. As a brand, Universal Works are always referring to the past and reimagining aged aesthetics in a contemporary fashion. We, too, adopted this approach when curating a bold and honest palette of materials and colours. In particular, the range of vibrant greens used are reminiscent of the equipment in the mills and factories that are so influential to the collections of Universal Works. Naturally, these greens compliment the earthy tones of the original, industrial context of Coal Drops Yard, without competing for attention. We paired two shades of green, matched each with a material (steel or oak) and applied them across the front and back of house respectively. Merchandise is displayed on cool-green powder-coated Unistrut shelving systems, while the changing rooms are lined in warm-green stained oak. In this way, colour is used to draw a clear distinction between the public shop floor and more intimate areas. A 4 metre tall mirrored wall marks this boundary line; its pivoting doors add a sense of theatre by offering glimpses of these two green shades alongside one another, throughout their orbits. |
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Universal Works, Coal Drops Yard 2018
© French + Tye
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UNSCENE ARCHITECTURE
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TheGarden of Privatised Delights
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vPPR ARCHITECTS
Hestercombe
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WILKINSON EYRECOLOUR MEMORY BY CHRIS WILKINSON
I am an enthusiastic painter but my interest in architectural colour was awakened when I was invited to speak at a conference in Mexico 24 years ago. This gave me a chance to see works by Barragan and Legorreta. I was lucky to stay in the Camino Real Hotel in Mexico City designed by Ricardo Legorreta in 1968 which has a fantastic use of colour enhanced by the bright sunlight. I remember arriving to see a bright pink coloured concrete screen next to a yellow rendered wall before entering the Reception which was resplendent with a beautiful gold leaf ceiling. The route to my room was enlivened by brightly coloured courtyards and water features.
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Maha Kutay & Woody Yao at the ZHD x Lasvit Presentation_Euroluce 2017 ©Lasvit
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ZAHA HADID DESIGNCOLOUR MEMORY BY MAHA KUTAY AND WOODY YAO
When we consider our experience with colour, we think more specifically about its absence, rather than a hue. In Zaha’s paintings, she explored the relationship between colour and its potential to express volume; the way she interpreted space (or the void) in her paintings, through the absence of colour, has certainly influenced our use of colour gradients in our practice. We chose Fine Pearl as it contains a slight iridescence, which adds dimension and a 3D quality to the pigment but also, as a white tint, it can be used to create a depth of field; the perception of 3D space within 2D applications.
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Philadelphia Museum of Art, Exhibition, 2011-2012 ZAHA HADID: FORM IN MOTION 
Image Courtesy of Paul Warchol
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COLOUR MEMORIES
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