Colours

by Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Alessandro Mendini

The nature of colour should change - no longer just a thin layer of change, but something that genuinely alters perception - this stipulation of Rem Koolhaas is echoed by the world famous architects and designers Alessandro Mendini and Norman Foster. In this volume, they present between them a total of 90 colours - each covering half a page - accompanied by comments on the background, the significance and the applications of the colours. Studies of colours from each office form the basis of this book, and were previously only available in extravagant individual editions. With this comprehensive and consistent presentation of the varying approaches to colour, we have a compendium which shows the wide use of colour in today s technologically advanced architecture with its modern, post-modern and deconstructive orientation. The range of examples of the colours in practice includes load-bearing structures, facades, interior design, furnishing and the entire spectrum of product design.

376 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2001

About the author

Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a representative of Deconstructivism and is the author of Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan.
He is seen by some as one of the significant architectural thinkers and urbanists of his generation, by others as a self-important iconoclast. In 2000, Rem Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize. In 2008, Time put him in their top 100 of The World's Most Influential People. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2014.

Reviews

[Mike Bularz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sparse flip-book that poses as "comprehensively treating color and how it relates to specific examples". There were 3-5 interesting bits and interviews and articles about color that covered some ground but this book in no serious way attempts to define a perspective on the use of color. The structure of "here's some ideas and thoughts related to the topic" doesn't become "heres what certain colors do in certain situations". Although something as subjective as taste in color shouldn't be easy to formulize, a collection primarily padded with OMA staff's favorite colors and various poems about colors is not the best alternative. Overall this one is the most "coffe-table book" in the Koolhaas series. If you come across it somewhere flip through it, don't buy.