torplanner
Active Member
I wonder if there are discussions regarding the risks of an explosion at Redpath. A sugar refinery in Georgia blew up about a year ago. Might not be the best idea to put a nice new glass people stacker too close.
Syn: Who has dismissed any of p5's comments? Not I - I haven't responded to them.
"Grey is the most versatile colour, made up of equal amounts of the primaries, and has a strong ability to shift in tone. It will, for instance, absorb a colour placed next to it and shift to the complementary colour of that colour, creating harmony through successive contrast.
While expressions of personal taste for other colours ( the bright red Cor-Ten steel planned for Filmport that Project End loves, for instance ... ) are passably interesting - as is grey's power to provoke a sense of moral outrage - this development uses colour differently ... and well. "
"There are no Forbidden Colours - just colour poorly used, or used well. Relying on bright colour to add spectacle to a lacklustre design won't improve it, and is a lazy approach. It's also reasonable to hold up the Waterloo Pharmacy building as an example of how overdesigning something ( in this case applying chintz ... ) adds nothing to a building that's already quite handsome."
I wonder if there are discussions regarding the risks of an explosion at Redpath. A sugar refinery in Georgia blew up about a year ago. Might not be the best idea to put a nice new glass people stacker too close.
There you go again - I've never said that grey "adds" colour, merely that through successive contrast it can shift to the complementary of whatever colour that is placed next to it. There have been a number of comments about grey, including the absurd claim that it isn't a colour, so helping people understand how versatile it is, and how it works, is perfectly reasonable. You raise black, but it's quite different from grey - there's only one black, but many greys.
Spectacle has no inherent qualitative value - it merely means that the eye is drawn to something. Adding colour can create spectacle, but it doesn't automatically improve a design; sometimes it can reduce a good one to something less than it was. Compare some of the gaudily painted and stuccoed storefronts in Mustapha's Then and Now thread to see how perfectly fine Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian buildings along our main streets have been ruined by a screaming-match of retail signage and poorly thought-out colour choices.
I guess that everything that is not a grey box is 'spectacle' and a moral and creative failure. Interesting.
Hey, who says an adhered Corus logo can't form nice counterpoint to the, er, "greyness"? Just like so many so-called "bland" 50s buildings were enhanced by the signage (case in point: Redpath--albeit less so than a few years ago)
No one says it can't. All that's being said is that other legitimate, viable options exist. An interesting use of colour (not grey) would've been very appropriate for this building.
Yeah, and it's like saying that Gropius/Parkinesque 50s Modernist buildings would have been better off if they used more green or orange glazed brick...