Color

Lawrence Weschler:

The red, for example, wasn't simply red – or rather it was: the surface was covered over in a completely even gloss of lipstick red paint – but (had it been doing that before?) the panel was reflecting ambient conditions like crazy, so much so that in fact almost none of the surface, strictly speaking, was red. Pool-like, it was reflecting the yellow ceiling panel beyond, whose own color was in turn being affected by the blue floor piece beyond that. There were purple effects and green, a sort of even bruise-brown hovering over the entire array when one now viewed the gallery from the side.

"There can be no description or theory of color per se," Irwin insists, "when the phenomena are endless." The notion that color can be reduced to a series of codes, to a grammar, or to a form of "mathematics," to use Wittegensetein's term, is, for Irwin, nonsense, since color is dependent on context and ground-up perceptual experience. Beginning with color codes or concepts was to reduce in advance an infinitely wide range of phenomena to a limited set of categories, editing out all specificity in favor of abstraction.

Irwin has explained that he decided to use the fluorescent tubes in the "dumbest" way possible, but, as one critic cautioned, "dumb, it turns out, has a special meaning for him: It's a form so simple that you end up not paying attention to it as a form." Irwin's interest was, rather, in the range of light, color, reflection, and shadow interaction made possible by combining tubes with different hues and finishes by wrapping them with theatrical gels.

The first thing you register here is the dramatic inconsistency in the coloration of the timber cladding the house in Haldenstein: the natural hues of the wood survive only in the lee of the sills, like re-growth along the parties of a head of dyed hair. But a second glance takes in the precision of the cuts made to accommodate the window and the fact that the pine is used in seamless lengths.

In 1923 Kandinsky proposed a universal correspondence between the three elementary shapes and the three primary colors: the dynamic triangle is inherently yellow, the static square is intrinsically red, and the serene circle is naturally blue.

The series ▲■● represents Kandinsky’s attempt to prove a universal correlation between color and geometry; it has become one of the most famous icons of the Bauhaus. Kandinsky conceived of these colors and shapes as a series of oppositions: yellow and blue represent the extremes of hot/cold, light/dark, and active/passive, while red is the intermediary between them. The triangle, square, and circle are graphic equivalents of the same polarities.

Problem

The greens and grays of hospitals and office corridors are depressing and cold. Natural wood, sunlight, bright colors are warm. In some way, the warmth of the colors in a room makes a great deal of difference between comfort and discomfort.

Solution

Choose surface colors which, together with the color of the natural light, reflected light, and artificial lights, create a warm light in the rooms.

Colors in nature are, in general, more subdued than what comes directly from the pencil or the tube of paint. Greens, especially, tend to be a lot browner than we expect.

"What nature does with its colors is invariably—the palette of nature is twice as complicated, at least twice as sophisticated, as anything any artist can ever come up with. On a couple levels.

To start with, there are these amazing combinations of colors, filled with surprises and almost never wrong. I don't know how Nature ever conceived to put, say, those together. But, boy, are they right on the money!"

Twice every summer we discussed whether colors in nature could clash.

When not compelled to do otherwise, the Braun design team’s use of color in products was reduced to highly specific areas such as control switches. Restricting the use of color to small points on an otherwise neutral object concentrates its effect, which is shifted away from decoration and towards function, especially when each color is assigned a signal role such as green for ‘on / off' switches, red for ‘fm’ and yellow for ‘phono’ on hi-fis or yellow for the second hand on clocks and watches.

This color coding of operating details is a primary example of the self-explanatory nature of Braun products.

In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize
that color deceives continually.

What counts here – first and last – is not so-called knowledge
of so-called facts, but vision – seeing.

Our concern is the interaction of color; that is, seeing
what happens between colors.

We are able to hear a single tone.
But we almost never (that is, without special devices) see a single color
unconnected and unrelated to other colors.
Colors present themselves in continuous flux, constantly related to
changing neighbors and changing conditions.

As a consequence, this proves for the reading of color
what Kandinsky often demanded for the reading of art:
what counts is not the what but the how.

We try to recognize our preferences and our aversions –
what colors dominate in our work; what colors, on the other hand,
are rejected, disliked, or of no appeal. Usually a special effort
in using disliked colors ends with our falling in love with them.

Observe the interior and exterior, the furniture and textile decoration
following such color schemes, as well as commercialized color “suggestions”
for innumerable do-it-yourselves.

Our conclusion: we may forget for a while those rules of thumb
of complementaries, whether complete or “split”, and of triads and
tetrads as well.
They are worn out.

Second, no mechanical color system is flexible enough
to precalculate the manifold changing factors, as named before,
in a single prescribed recipe.

Good painting, good coloring, is comparable to good cooking.
Even a good cooking recipe demands tasting and repeated tasting
while it is being followed.
And the best tasting still depends on a cook with taste.

Whether something “has color” or not is as hard to define verbally as are
such questions as “what is music” or “what is musical."

Nevertheless there were a number of colorful appliances produced by Braun, particularly from the late 1960s onwards, when plastics in bright primary colors became fashionable and available.

T3 domino lighter
KMM 2 coffee grinder
HLD 4 hairdryer
KF 145 coffee maker
HT 95 pop-up toaster

When Rams’s team used color in such a way, it was uncompromising in its intensity: loud and demanding. The highly reduced forms of the products that it clothed, which had gently rounded edges, smooth opaque surfaces and discreet (usually black) detailing only served to increase this intensity.

"The intention was to create product alternatives for people who wished for strong color highlights in their living environments. This impulse came from marketing - not from design,” says Rams, dissociating himself from this approach. This was one instance where marketing got the upper hand in the decision-making process and the design team had to bow to contemporary fashion.

Indeed, there is a defiant aspect to these chromatic exceptions; they are not so much compromises as mutinous responses. Nevertheless, the resulting products are beautiful objects in their stand-alone way.

Along the sand there will be frisky shadows, that will dance and fall away.
Or, if there is snow, the flames will write a strange calligraphy against the whiteness.