DETAILinside: Witthöft & LaTourelle bring colour into architecture. Does colour make a room a »better« place?
Rodney LaTourelle: When we think of colour we aren’t just thinking of bright colours. We’re considering the whole context, because we’re interested in the whole spectrum. Colour interacts with the material; it interacts with the body of a material in space. Colour can expand the space, it can structure or differentiate the space.
Louise Witthöft: When we do a project, we look at the architecture first. That’s where all the ideas come from. We apply colours to articulate the space. Our approach is to emphasise the interesting aspects of the architecture.
DETAILinside: At the beginning of the 1920s Taut and Gropius advocated colour as an expression of a social utopia. Is there any utopia left today?
LaTourelle: Good question. Back then colour was more the exception than the rule. Taut especially connected utopia and colour, but it was more about individuating elements and sections of a building, emphasising diversity and celebrating everyday aspects in a communal context.
Today maybe it‘s kind of the opposite. There‘s so much information and so much colour. The current situation is more about somehow »curating« your own life.
Witthöft: Colour is everywhere, so it‘s about trying to focus it a bit?...
LaTourelle:?...?and while being deluged by it, just trying to see it again.
Rodney LaTourelle: When we think of colour we aren’t just thinking of bright colours. We’re considering the whole context, because we’re interested in the whole spectrum. Colour interacts with the material; it interacts with the body of a material in space. Colour can expand the space, it can structure or differentiate the space.
Louise Witthöft: When we do a project, we look at the architecture first. That’s where all the ideas come from. We apply colours to articulate the space. Our approach is to emphasise the interesting aspects of the architecture.
DETAILinside: At the beginning of the 1920s Taut and Gropius advocated colour as an expression of a social utopia. Is there any utopia left today?
LaTourelle: Good question. Back then colour was more the exception than the rule. Taut especially connected utopia and colour, but it was more about individuating elements and sections of a building, emphasising diversity and celebrating everyday aspects in a communal context.
Today maybe it‘s kind of the opposite. There‘s so much information and so much colour. The current situation is more about somehow »curating« your own life.
Witthöft: Colour is everywhere, so it‘s about trying to focus it a bit?...
LaTourelle:?...?and while being deluged by it, just trying to see it again.