Colour is architecture’s sharpest tool in the box.

It has indexed everything from the feminine, cosmetic and vulgar to the pure, intrinsic and embodied.

Attitudes to colour are constantly shifting. They have played a central role in the history of architecture: from the polychromy of the ancients to the great white interiors of high modernism; the figurative flourishes of postmodernism to the embodied sublime of contemporary building systems and facades.

In contemporary architecture, colour has emerged as a powerful mode of working and an impactful political proposition. The second digital age has ushered paradigmatic shifts in how architects engage it.

Employing the full spectrum of colour requires a projective mode of action – one that anticipates nascent futures. It aids in the democratisation of visual culture, opening the field to enable a multiplicity of identities by introducing new references and embracing new voices.

This book explores the operative role of colour in current practice by proffering visions not of idealised other worlds, but rather radical reimaginings of our present one.

Features: 100 Architects, Maya Alam, David Batchelor, Galo Canizares, Courtney Coffman, Fala Atelier, Marcelyn Gow, Louisa Hutton, Sam Jacob, Carolyn Kane, Guto Requena, Javier González Rivero, Paulette Singley, Amanda Williams and Mimi Zeiger.