Colour, Light and Shadow

In historical architecture the range of colours was limited and depended on available natural materials and paints. In new architecture the range of colours is much broader and harsh colours are feasible through the application of paints, enamels and anodized colouring (Couleur, 2001).

Colour, light and shadow have always had an impact on the appearance of buildings and structures and nowadays these factors may be used in new ways (Franck and Lepori, 2000). The choice of colours, in particular on external surfaces, was limited also by weathering requirements. Research has built up a vast knowledge on colours comprising the phenomena of brightness, lightness, blackness, greyness, whiteness, contrast, hue, shade, colour systems, combining and mixing of colours, colour harmonization and patterns, changing colour impressions and interaction between colour and people (Rihlama, 1999).

New chemical processes have created new types of paints and colours. Architects are willing to design the exterior or interior of buildings with new colour effects. To mention one realization only: the new Luxor Theatre in the Kop van Zuid district of Rotterdam has a leading red colour on the surfaces (architect: Bolles and Wilson AIT, 2001). Strong colours on buildings evince a similarity with the colouring of machines (cars, electrical appliances, furniture, etc.) and electrical cables. There are some architects who have opted to make certain colours their design trademark, e.g. Richard Meier with his steel panels enamelled to a white colour. Others, e.g. some Japanese architects, prefer the dominance of grey.

Lighting has grown into an important factor in architectural design, as can be seen from this statement from Le Corbusier (Sebestyen, 1998): ‘Architecture is the learned, correct and magnificent play of masses under light.’ Building with light has been applied ingeniously by architects and studied in great detail (Building with Light, 2001). Artificial illumination provides new visual effects. The New York LVMH tower designed by the Frenchman Christian de Portzamparc is illuminated nightly by a warm golden colour that gradually changes into a deep green. Colour may be applied over a surface or focussed on a spot or on several spots. If light is concentrated over several small points and applied to a dense pattern, it becomes a tool of articulation. This approach was applied by Renzo Piano at one façade of the KPN Telecom Office Tower in Rotterdam. Green lamp elements are set on this façade in a grid pattern. The lamps are individually switched on and off and are controlled by a computer program.

The new Dutch KPN Telecom building, Rotterdam.
Articulation may be realized through light spots.

Sebestyen, Gyula. 2003. New Architecture and Technology.

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Articulation

In Beedle (1995: 149) articulation is defined as follows: ‘Action or manner of jointing or interrelating architectural elements throughout a design or building.’ This definition is of general validity and it includes articulation of a ground plan to rooms, the division of a façade by repetitive decorations and/or dividing lines of floors or panels. Articulation of building volumes and of the urban space has acquired special meaning. Dutch architects (Aldo Van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger) designed buildings with strongly articulated premises and provided theoretical justification for this kind of articulation: ‘Things must only be big as a multiple of units which are small in themselves, for excess soon creates an effect of distance, and by always making everything too big, too empty, and thus too distant and untouchable, architects are producing in the first place distance and inhospitality’ (Hertzberger, in Lüchinger, 1981). However, articulation of the building volume (anti-block movement) and of the urban fabric does not exclude bigness. Articulation in our time is specifically used as a decorative (and constructive) subdivision of a surface (a façade or a ceiling) into uniform small decorative elements where there exists a complete neutrality regarding the size and shape of that surface. This led to the development of various ‘systems’ or ‘subsystems’ for façades, ceilings and other surfaces (Ornement, 2001).

Articulation of the space is achieved among other means by space divisions. In deconstructivist architecture (e.g. by Frank O. Gehry) spaces may be divided by quasi-virtual components, for instance, chains and grids.

Historical styles articulated the surface by a variety of flat or relief decorations. In modern architecture big flat surfaces, not articulated in any way, were employed.

Then in some designs large flat surfaces received an articulation of large sub-surfaces, frequently by marking these in specific colours. This type of ‘decoration’ may be applied in some cases but it never becomes a basic way of articulating and decorating surfaces.

CENG industrial building project, Grenoble, France, architect: Jacques Ferrier.
Example of façade building articulation with emphasis on parallel vertical lines.


IBM factory office, Basiano, near Milan, Italy, 1983, architect: Grino Valle.
IBM company design model.

Sebestyen, Gyula. 2003. New Architecture and Technology.

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Recesses, Cavities, Holes, Canted/Slanted Lines and Planes

Although energy conservation and control over cost would call for simple contours and building volumes, in new architecture recesses and cavities in the building volumes are frequent. This ensures deep shadows and picturesque buildings. Some authors call buildings with recesses, cavities or holes ‘eroded’ volumes. Buildings with volumes pushed into each other at irregular angles, are referred to as ‘crashed’ volumes.

Cavities and holes in a building, in particular at some height, are new in architecture (not counting arches) and also give rise to new technical problems, such as the wind blowing through the aperture.

Canted or slanted planes, façades, columns and other components cause particular difficulties for the architect, the structural and services engineer and in addition require special skill from the construction team. Many architecturally impressive tall buildings have been designed and constructed with such geometry. A notable realization is the Dongba Securities Headquarters, a 35-storey tower in Seoul, Korea and there are several others. In some historic buildings (for example, at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia), an arch in the building opens a throughway. In modern times, reinforced concrete and steel structures enable thedesigner to cut through a building in different spectacular fashions. Examples are abundant.

Sebestyen, Gyula. 2003. New Architecture and Technology.

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Theory and Praxis

The aesthetics of new architecture has spawned many publications, essays, theories. Ultimately, however, architecture is concerned with buildings and not theories. Ben van Berkel, a young Dutch architect (designer of the Rotterdam cable-stayed bridge) insisted ‘that he is of a different generation, implicitly criticising them [meaning educators of young architects] for designing buildings to suit their theories’ (quoted from Philip Jodidio (1996) Contemporary European Architects, Volume IV, Taschen).

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Geometry

Many authors, with widely different professional backgrounds, believed in the existence of certain systems of proportion, scale and numbers.

Alberti wrote:
It is manifest that Nature delights in round figures, since we find that most things which are generated, made or directed by Nature are round ... We find too that Nature is sometimes delighted with figures of six sides; for bees, hornets, and all other kinds of wasps have learnt no other figure for building the cells in their hives, but the hexagon ... The polygons used by the Ancients were either of six, eight or sometimes ten sides. (Leone Battista Alberti, Ten Books on Architecture, Florence, 1485, cited in March and Steadman, The Geometry of Environment).

The various series of numbers (the Cantor set, the Fibonacci series), of curves (the Koch, the Minkowski and the Peano curves), the system of fractals, the golden section, Le Corbusier’s ‘modulor’ (based on repeated golden rectangle proportions) are but a few examples (Van Der Laan, 1983, Mandelbrot, 1983, Bovill, 1996). It has been assumed that certain such systems must be applied in architecture also (Padovan 1999, Salingaros, 2000). Geometric systems (as for example the module system) are transformed into number systems and vice versa (as for instance the Van Der Laan scale) (Van Der Laan, 1983). Certain styles and some architects did introduce various systems of proportions, scales, rhythms and measures. Palladio designed the plans of his villas on rectangles with whole number proportions: 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 1:4, 3:8 (Elam, 2001, Padovan, 1999).

National Assembly, Dacca, Bangladesh, 1962–83, designer: Sher E. Banglaganar.
Geometric patterns (triangle, etc.) may be dominant on a façade.

Architecture, after all, is a manifestation of geometry applied for the purpose of the design of buildings. Research attempted to create geometric systems for structural or architectural design, as has been seen already when discussing space frames, shells, domes and membranes. Some of the systems are of a pure mathematical or geometric character, in others structural or architectural design forms the basic background. There are attempts to develop fully automated structural design systems with geometric representation for structural domains, using automated techniques for finite element modelling, coupling self-adaptive integration of optimization techniques with geometry models (Kodiyalam, and Saxena, 1994). ‘Solid modelling’, meaning representation design, visualization, and analysis of three-dimensional computer models of real objects, finds application in the design of buildings but in other quite different fields also.

The attributes of symmetry and harmony gained favour in historical architecture: asymmetry, however, was appreciated only to the extent that it achieves harmony. On the other hand Viollet-le- Duc, a nineteenth-century architect, wrote: ‘Symmetry – an unhappy idea for which in our homes, we sacrifice our comfort, occasionally our common sense and always a lot of money’ (quoted by March and Steadman). Rhythm meant either repetition or variations with pleasing relationships. In modern and post-modern aesthetics, sometimes seemingly arbitrary deviations from repetition and disharmonic alterations became welcome. So, for instance, the memorial colonnade by Oscar Niemeyer was designed with variable column distances.

However, even the most sophisticated systems do not prevail forever, and invariably change over time. Styles and architectural design have to cope anew repeatedly with this transience and must devise their own solution for attaining pleasing appearances of buildings. What, however, is ‘pleasing’, is in itself a dynamic concept and the history of art and architecture continuously reports new design concepts that initially were judged to be ugly but as time went on were considered to be agreeable (Kroll, 1986).

The geometry of new architecture buildings may also display new features. Straight lines become curves, verticals and horizontals may be slanted and cut into each other at odd angles. Curves that traditionally featured in gothic, renaissance and baroque architecture are ignored; partly regular curves (circle, etc.) and individually designed curves take their place.

Hypo Bank Headquarters, Munich, Germany.
Façade with out-of-size proportioned components.

Naturally, the foregoing does not apply to all new buildings. Neo-classicist and late-modern buildings may adhere much more closely to the old rules.

Japanese architects have been ingenious in their application of geometric forms. Tadao Ando, for instance, favours a grid derived from traditional rice straw tatami mat with dimensions of 90 by 180 centimetres. Ando designs concrete walls with an exposed surface and each of his moulding boards (with the size of a tatami) has six holes through which the boards’ screws are driven. Arata Isozaki accords preference in his geometry to the square and the circle. In some designs he uses segments of curves and curved surfaces. On occasion grids are applied combined at slanted angles.

Size, scale and measure are changing. Large-size surfaces are articulated and contain uniformly spread identical small-scale elements or forms. In such cases a certain uniformity of the surface may be achieved and the contours of such surfaces can be selected almost at random.

It was pointed out that new architecture often extends components to the outside of buildings and sometimes into the air space. This is typical for suspended structures with external masts and cable systems but it can occur in other cases too, see, for example, Himmelblau’s office extension in Vienna. An innovative architectural component is the tall atrium often applied in large hotel buildings and office buildings. The internal height of such atria may reach up to 40 or more levels and poses a fresh challenge for their internal design (see the interiors of the hotels designed by John Portman).

Sebestyen, Gyula. 2003. New Architecture and Technology.

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Size, Scale, Proportion

The subject of size, scale and proportion is discussed at various places in this book. Here we draw attention to some general aspects concerning which there are no universal aesthetic rules in art. A short poem or a miniature painting may be of the same high aesthetic value as monumental creations, like War and Peace by Tolstoy, the paintings in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. This applies to architecture also. The Il Tempietto in Rome by Bramante is just as much a masterpiece as the Saint Peter Basilica also in Rome. Driven to the extremes of small or huge size, a work may be admired not so much for its aesthetic value as for the expertise in producing it in such minuscule or enormous dimensions. At the one extreme small elaborate sculptures in ivory or miniature paintings may serve as models. At the other extreme skyscrapers, pyramids, long-span suspension bridges, may serve as models. The opposite of what was previously said is also true: size in itself may not disqualify any art object from aesthetic appreciation.

Size, and other related characteristic categories – such as scale, proportion – must harmonize, however, in some measure with the actual expectations of people, or, on the contrary, be convincing with their new, and possibly revolutionary, characteristic features. Technological aspects have a function here. The cathedrals from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries utilized to the full the technological potentials of their period. Cathedrals with a similar stylistic approach but built in the nineteenth century (St Vlasius in the Black Forest region, Germany) or in the twentieth century (Notre Dame de la Paix in Yamassoukrou, Ivory Coast) evince admiration for their sheer size but the anachronism between style and the period of design and realization acts adversely. As has been stated earlier new architecture has very much altered perception of size: skyscrapers and wide-span structures have been widely accepted.

Similar statements as for size may be made for scale and proportion. Absolute size and relationships of size may be very different from what was generally acceptable in historical styles.

First Interstate Bank Tower, Dallas, USA, 1985, architect: Henry N. Cobb.
Uninterrupted largescale slanting glass facade (unknown in historical architecture).

Sebestyen, Gyula. 2003. New Architecture and Technology.

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