It's a myth that modernist architects don't like to use color.
Look back at much of the work of Le Corbusier and you will see a man who loved color and used it beautifully. From the colored light monitors of his La Tourette nunnery, to the incredible painted door of the Ronchamp Chapel, to the interior colors of Villa Savoye, you will see an incredible range of color from pastels to deep, bright hues.
Color is so important to our lives. It affects our moods. It inspires certain feelings. Color can contribute either energy or calm to our spaces.
Some musings on color inspiration...
...I love all colors and there are millions of combinations.
...You can find color inspiration almost anywhere – nature, movies, a painting -- but it is important to make a personal connection with the colors you choose for your spaces. Psychology Today once reported that, “Color preferences are deeply rooted emotional responses that seem to lack any rational basis, yet the powerful influence of color rules our choices in everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the cars we buy.” You do not need to follow trends or “color
forecasts” issued by the paint industry - these will pass. Choose colors that speak to you.
... I frequently pull colors from nature on the site where a project is located. But that’s only one of an infinite number of methods for choosing color. One of my client’s expressed the desire for a “pop art” feeling in his commercial office renovation, so we used clean, crisp, bright colors -- and lots of them.
...Sometimes we need a deep, saturated color that we can sink into, like crawling under a big, fluffy duvet. That’s why I like to use my clients’ favorite colors in their most private rooms, which are usually the bedrooms. These spaces should be sanctuaries, nests. So I want the color palettes to help create spaces to which my clients will always want to return -- where they will feel cradled and cared for.
...Once I painted walls a deep orange to mimic firelight. (The fire-lit rooms at “Hogwarts” in the Harry Potter movies were my inspiration!) And with the right uplighting on the walls, that space feels infinitely warmer in the winter. By the way, this was in a modern space.
…And, of course, white is a color. White has undertones, so be careful when you’re selecting whites because they have dominant undertones, either cool or warm, that will affect how everything looks in the space.
…White can have a dominant undertone of any of the following: green, pink, yellow or blue. In my experience, the green and pink undertones can be the most disconcerting. Used wrong, they can destroy a space.