This paper briefly reviews the information which is currently available in Britain to aid designers and public in the use of colour for buildings. It commences with an outline of the basic functions of colour: ergonomic, structural and aesthetic. The main discussion focuses upon problems of aesthetics. In this, particular attention is given to the phenomenon of 'fashion', or stylistic change.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Gloag, H.L. and Keyte, M.J., Rational aspects of colouring in building interiors, Arch. Jrnl., 125, 399 (1957), 125, 443 (1957).
2.
Hardy, A. C. (Ed), Colour in architecture , Leonard Hill Books, London (1957).
3.
Hardy, A.C., Colours for floor finishes, Building Materials, 26, 89 (1966).
4.
I.E.S. Lighting Handbook, Illumin. Eng. Soc. , New York (1977).
5.
B.S.1710: 1960, Identification of pipelines, BSI, London (1960).
6.
B.S. 2929: 1967, Safety colours for use in industry, BSI, London (1967).
7.
Küller, R., A semantic model for describing perceived environment, Document D 12, National Swedish Institute for Building Research, Stockholm (1972).
8.
Acking, C.A. and Küller, R., The perception of an interior as a function of its colour, Ergonomics, 15, 645 (1972).
9.
Albers, J., Interaction of colour, Yale University Press, Newhaven. USA (1963).
10.
Birren, F., Light, colour and environment, Reinhold, New York (1969).
11.
Hicks, D., On home decoration, Crowell, New York (1972).
12.
Conran, T., The house book, Mitchel Beazley. London (1974).
13.
Ozenfant, A. , Colour: The English tradition, Arch. Rev., 81, 44 (1937). Colour and method, Arch. Rev., 81, 89 (1937). Colour experiments, rules and facts, Arch. Rev., 81, 195 (1937). Colour solidity , Arch. Rev., 81, 243 (1937). Colour in the town, Arch. Rev., 82, 41 (1937). Colour pro domo , Arch. Rev., 82, 77 (1937).
14.
Birren, F., Colour for interiors, Whitney Library of Design, New York (1963).
15.
Birren, F., Colour psychology and colour therapy, University Books , New York (1961).
16.
Birren, F., Gloag, H.L. and Ashford, F.C., Colour research in question, Design, 151, 57 (1961).
17.
Department of Education and Science, Building Bulletin No. 9, Colour in school buildings, HMSO, London (1969).
18.
Newcastle Regional Hospital Board.Use of colour in hospitals, The Board, Newcastle (1955).
19.
Gloag, H.L., Colouring in factories, HMSO, London (1961).
20.
Gloag, H.L., The co-ordination of building colours, BRE Digest (January 1973).
21.
B.S. 5252: 1976, Framework for colour co-ordination for building purposes, BSI, London (1976).
22.
Hardy, A.C. , Colour and farm buildings, Agriculture (November 1970).
23.
Design Council, Colour finishes for farm buildings, Design Council, London (1975).
24.
Hardy, A.C., Colour finishes for static caravans, A Report of the Joint Working Party of the National Caravan Council and the Design Council (1974).
25.
Lenclos, J.P., Couleurs et paysages, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui (October 1972).
26.
Sélincourt, E. (Ed), William Wordsworth: Guide to the lakes, OUP (1977).
27.
Goethe, J.W., Colour theory, Studio Vista, London (1971).
28.
Chevreul, M.E., The principles of harmony and contrast of colours, Bell and Daldy, London (1879).
29.
Munsell, A.H. , A grammar of colour, Strathmore Paper Co., Mass., USA (1921).
30.
Moon, P. and Spencer, D.E., Geometric formulation of classical colour harmony, Jnl. Opt. Soc. of America, 34, 46 (1944).
31.
Faulkner, W., Architecture and colour, Wiley, New York (1972).
32.
Whitfield, T.W.A. and Slatter , P.E., Colour harmony: An evaluation, British Jnl. of Aesthetics, 18, 199 (1978).
33.
Granger, G.W. , An experimental study of colour harmony, Jnl. of General Psychology, 52, 21 (1955).
34.
Hogg, J., A principal component analysis of semantic differential judgements of single colours and colour pairs. Jnl. of General Psychology, 80, 129 (1969).
35.
Nayatani, Y., Tsujimoto, A., Ikeda, J. and Namba, S., An appraisal of two-colour harmony by paired comparisons method, Acta Chromatica, 2, 1 (1969).
36.
Berlyne, D.E. , Aesthetics and psychobiology, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York ( 1971).
37.
Gropius, W., The scope of total architecture, Allen and Unwin, London (1956).
38.
Sparshott, F.E. , The structure of aesthetics, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London ( 1963).
39.
Bullock, A. and Stallybrass, 0. (Eds), The Fontana dictionary of modern thought, Fontana, London (1977).
40.
Berlyne, D.E. , Experimental aesthetics, in Dodwell, P. C. (Ed), New horizons in psychology , Vol. 2, Penguin (1972).
41.
Wohlwill, J.F. , Amount of stimulus exploration and preference as differential functions of stimulus complexity, Perception and Psychophysics, 4, 307 (1968).
42.
Rapoport, A. , Some observations regarding man-environment studies. Architectural Research and Teaching, 2, 4 ( 1971).
43.
Rapoport, A. and Kantor, R.E., Complexity and ambiguity in environmental design, Jnl. of the American Institute of Planners. 33, 210 (1967).
44.
Hogg, J. (Ed), Psychology and the visual arts, Penguin (1969).
45.
Kreitler, H. and Kreitler, S., Psychology of the arts, Duke University Press, North Carolina (1972).
46.
Gibbins, K. , Communication aspects of women's clothes and their relation to fashionability, British Jnl. of Social and Clinical Psychology, 8, 301 (1969).
47.
Laumann, E.O. and House, J.S., Livingroom styles and social attributes: The patterning of material artefacts in a modern urban community, Sociology and Social Research, 54, 331 (1970).
48.
Canter, D., West, S. and Wools, R., Judgements of people and their rooms, British Jnl. of Social and Clinical Psychology, 13, 113 (1974).
49.
Veblen, T., The theory of the leisure class, Unwin, London (1970).
50.
Goffman, E., The presentation of self in everyday life, Doubleday Anchor Books, New York (1959).
51.
Gibbins, K. and Gwynn, T.K., A new theory of fashion: A test of some predictions, British Jnl. of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14, 1 (1975).
52.
Inui, M., Practical analysis of interior colour environment, Building Research Institute, Japan: Occasional Report No. 27 (1966 ).
53.
Whitfield, T.W.A. and Slatter , P.E., The evaluation of architectural interior colour as a function of style of furnishings: Categorisation effects, Scandinavian Jnl. ofPsychology, 19, 251 (1978).
54.
Whitfield, T.W.A., A categorisation approach to evaluate aspects of design with particular reference to colour, PhD Thesis, University of Newcastle (1979).
55.
Osgood, E.C., Suci, G.J. and Tannenbaum, P.H. , The measurement of meaning, University of Illinois Press, Urbana ( 1957).
56.
Sivik, L., Colour meaning and perceptual colour dimensions: A study of exterior colours , Göteborg Psychological Reports, 4, No. 11 (1974).
Rosch, E., Principles of categorisation, in Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B. S. (Eds), Cognition and categorisation, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates , New Jersey (1978).
59.
Whitfield, T.W.A. and Slatter , P.E., The effects of categorisation and prototypicality on aesthetic choice in a furniture selection task, British Jnl. ofPsychology, 70, 65 (1979).