Color White in Architecture

Il colore bianco potrebbe far pensare ad una costante nella storia dell’architettura, quasi una sorta di mito che giunge da tempi lontani. Osservando ed analizzando tre piccole case iberiche costruite recentemente, si possono delineare alcune costanti e tracciare ipotesi sui fondamenti del progettare - e quindi del pensare - in bianco.

The Mediterranean is a myth that has its origin in a time of which History itself has no memory. The Mediterranean borders are a constantly changing geometry: they move, expand and shrink, welcome and exile, reward and punish. From the special relationship between the Mediterranean and the white color arises the idea of a city, an investigation about the genesis of the forms and colors of the mare nostrum, a sedimentation of various studies and research, rearranged in a story. The white city is the landscape-cultural mosaic of the Mediterranean. As Marco Polo tells of innumerable invisible cities that are fragments of his Venice, the Mediterranean is a city that is all the cities: white (and invisible), as an unintelligible identity, the city is at the same time local and universal, and anyone can search for their own roots in it.

The myth of white in architecture has ancient roots partially sprouting from a classic ideal revived by modernism that now seems to acquire new values. Also in light of its current global dissemination – from the US to Europe and Japan – white architecture cannot be considered as a fad, nor can it be reduced to a mere Mediterranean character. Fran Silvestre Arquitectos’ production exemplifies the complexity of this phenomenon with its presence in the contemporary international scene and a range of works, mostly housing designs, of remarkable quality. The trajectory illustrated in this book partially results from the re-reading of the modern as well as Mediterranean architectural tradition, and has additionally benefitted from a constant experimentation on construction techniques, technologies and materials. The choice of white for these architectures is not disconnected from spatial principles – quite the opposite, as it contributes to composition, highlights its effects, underlines its contrasts and consistency, and affects the relationships between forms and the relations with the site. Designing white architecture means above all enhancing the importance of light, form, space and its perception.

We analyze the main indicators, both objective and subjective, that specialists have
proposed to assess the visual integration degree of an architecture which has a high level of
impact on urban or natural landscape. So far, most of the legislation on this issue mainly
concerned industrial and energy installations in natural environments. However, more
recent Spanish legislation (LOTPP 2004, RPCV 2006, etc.), like many others in the
European Union do, demands considering some other architectural settings, such as the
urban edges, the roads into city, or the cultural heritage environments. This requires
developing a ‘landscape integration study’ with civil participation, in which color has to be
evaluated as a conditioning aesthetic fact, but regulations do not give specific guidance on
how to evaluate such a feature. Research on visual integration developed for industry;
usually assess in an objective manner the impact of color by calculating an index based on
the difference between the average color of the element to be integrated and the one of the
background. However, the work of artists and architects demonstrate that there exist many
other visual integration strategies which are worthy and are not based on color matching.