COLOUR IS POLITICAL

“Colour is seen as both dangerous and trivial”
David Batchelor, Chromophobia, Reacktion Books, 2001

In architecture, colour is often thought of as dangerous, because of its capacity to destroy the perception of form. It’s thought of as trivial, because of its association with decoration, with the primitive, and with the feminine.

Colour is political.

Years ago now, I created a bold colour palette for a strip of motley old shops in Parramatta. It was a temporary project, as the buildings were to be demolished as part of the city centre redevelopment.

Let’s face it, the buildings were mostly ugly, the shops were a little ragged. I decided to treat the whole street as a canvas, to ignore the details on each façade and just make a big bold statement with colour that was applied to every building.

Colour destroyed the impression that each little shop was struggling on its own, and instead created a sense of a precinct, a community, a place that could be described, and a destination.

In tandem with a POP UP program by council, new life and energy were generated.

While the camouflaging power of colour can be used to conceal difference, and to destroy form, it can also create new relationships between unlike things.

Colour is always political.