Brace yourself-- Shocking revelations today in the New York Times: The Guggenheim was supposed to be red!
That Platonic white ideal of modernism-- shattered. Our expectations of modern architecture do not include color. Instead we like to think in terms of the purity of the materials, sometimes losing out on the playfulness of color. For example, check out Friedensreich Hundertwasser's hostel for the Ronald McDonald House for convalescing children. The cheery, fanciful color must help lift spirits in such dire circumstances. Even the Victorian era, despite its prudishness, or perhaps because of it, used color in bold ways, expressing the architectural details with flair. And what a joy it is to see all of the lovely colorful buildings standing side by side like a pack of crayons in the small towns of Ireland. But color can be a commitment, and fear of choosing the wrong color can lead one to go the safe route: beige. One way to kill some time and test out color schemes is to go on the Benjamin Moore website. Their exterior options are fun to configure and before we painted our house in Islip, I tested many different combinations. Ultimately, we settled on no less than four different colors-- the overall house a customized blue that I fear we can never duplicate, periwinkle shutters, cranberry trim, and taupe accents. Now that we are looking at repainting Potic cottage with its new addition, I am anxious to test out some new ideas-- perhaps we'll have a vote?
3 comments:
I think it would have been kind of cool if the Guggenheim was red!
It does get you thinking about how different that city block would look.
A red Guggenheim is what we needed to unstuff the upper east side stuffiness!
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