Abstract
In addition to the use of light and of architectural forms, materials and colors are the key visual parameters for perceiving and experiencing space. While for centuries Asian cultures have cultivated a highly refined awareness of materials along with an advanced understanding of construction, there has been a lively debate since the early 19th century in Europe on the role of materials and colors in architecture and interior design. Architects and designers such as Jakob Ignaz Hittorff in France, John Ruskin in England, and Gottfried Semper in Germany proved that “white” classical Greek architecture was originally adorned with bright colors. The ensuing “polychrome dispute” over the theories of archeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann subsequently engendered a wide range of movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. John Ruskin believed that “materials should be the only colors in architecture.” Semper spoke of “material-color-surfacing” as the key characteristic, the “ultimate element” of spatial design. Around 1900, this served as a foundation for Art Nouveau and the New Realism of the Deutscher Werkbund. Abstract painting of the 20th century also changed perceptions of form and color in architecture.
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© 2007 Birkhäuser Verlag AG
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(2007). Material and Color. In: Color — Communication in Architectural Space. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8286-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8286-5_8
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Basel
Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-7596-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-7643-8286-5
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