Color of absence and presence: Reconsidering black in architecture

Abstract

This article explores the effects of using black on spatial experience by means of phenomenological analysis of its architectural examples with a special focus on Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by Peter Zumthor. Contrary to the growing interest in the color in contemporary architecture, black rarely found a place in architectural history and in studies on color design. Whereas, the distinct achromatic qualities of the color that appear highly self‐contradictory swinging back and forth from absence to presence cover a wide range of potentials to be used in architectural design. Through insights delved into the spatial experience constructed around these qualities, this paper attempts to analyze how black is used as a design element in built environments. This analysis revolves around Zumthor s pavilion, which stood as a uniform black box on the expanse of green grass of London Kensington Gardens for more than three months in 2011. Encompassing various oppositions, the box built to surround a hortus conclusus, an enclosed garden inside, provided its visitors with a unique spatial experience depending predominantly on the combination of its form, tectonics and the qualities of its color, black. The phenomenological analysis of these qualities manifests that the architect utilized the contradictory characteristics of the color intentionally in order to create a complex and manifold spatial experience for visitors in and outside the box. In an interplay of absence and presence, momentary crystallizations of the vision of black provide architects with uncharted opportunities for creative use of color in the design of built environments. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 42, 378–387, 2017

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