CHAPTER 23. Painted Surfaces in Contemporary Architecture

All architectures are made of solid materials that have colors. Color is an integral part of architecture and also a fundamental element of its decorum. This is how it has always been. Western historical buildings typically have the colors of their construction materials. Modernity breaks once and for all the profound link between material and color in architecture, finally making this relationship free. The architecture of modernity has been above all conceived as a composition of spaces and volumes, almost always has the color of its building materials or the non-color of the white plaster. The field of interest of this synthetic overview refers to those contemporary artifacts that have been intentionally painted or composed, or any applications expressly designed to give a color to the architecture. After the end of the last century we could say that color, freed from the slavery of matter and also from that of construction, assumes an increasingly new and decisive importance for architecture. Color becomes a landmark and a background able to create new significances in architectural and urban space. This chapter deals with colored surfaces by analyzing three non-opposing concepts – performative, social, narrative – which often characterize the new role of color in architecture.