Cardillo

architecture

www.antoninocardillo.com / works / colours /

Colours

, 2021–2009


List of architectural projects with colour semantic



Introduction

In 1824, the student of antiquities Jakob Ignaz Hittorff discovered in Sicily traces of colour on a small temple, among the ruins of the ancient city of Selinunte.⁠[1] He thus hypothesised that the Greek temples could not have been white. Up to then, European society had focused on the historic prejudice of Greek purity, the legitimacy of its action in the World. This phenomenon of identification still persists today, but this instance of purity does not come from a ‘classical’ past, as those who ‘use’ history to legitimise their actions would have us believe, but it is a consequence of the machine age. A consequence of that scientific interpretation of the World that finds representation in the science laboratory of the Century of the Enlightenment. That reveals the nature of the problem: the civilising European instance, which to this day pervades large parts of its ex-colonies, is founded on the primacy of the psychological function of Thought. Thus, in realising that ideal of purity which culminates in the absolutism of the white, modern architecture reveals the pattern of behaviour that moves it.⁠[2] Polychromy, on the other hand, speaks of the inclusive nature of the ‘classical’. Colour refers to the things of the World: the sea, the land, the forest and the sky. Colour possesses the power of evocation: sequentially and in associations, polychromy renders possible the universal language of architecture.


Notes

  1. ^ Jakob Ignaz Hittorff, Restitution du Temple d’Empédocle a Sélinonte, ou l’Architecture Polychrôme chez les Grecs. , Librairie de Firmin Didot Frères, Paris, 1851.
  2. ^ Carl Gustav Jung, Psychologische Typen , Rascher & Cie. Verlag, Zurich, 1921; It. ed., Tipi Psicologici, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 2016.

Mammacaura

Grey and pink

Saline Ettore e Infersa, Marsala, 16 May 2021

Mammacaura


Memories for Cruising

From green to red

Parma, 10 July 2019

Memories for Cruising


Off Club

Black and gold

Rome, 21 June 2018

Off Club


Specus Corallii

Orange and pink

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Trapani, 27 August 2016

Specus Corallii


Colour as a Narrative

Greys

Illuminum Fragrance, London, 26 April 2015

Colour as a Narrative


Crepuscular Green

Greens

Mondrian Suite, Rome, 29 April 2014

Crepuscular Green


House of Dust

From brown to pink

Rome, 16 April 2013

House of Dust


Postmodern Cafe

Blue, magenta, and green

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 6 September 2011

Postmodern Cafe


Akin to a Cinema Set

Blue and grey

Sergio Rossi, Milan, 15 April 2010

Akin to a Cinema Set


House for Wallpaper

Gold

Neues Museum, Berlin, 6 April 2009

House for Wallpaper*