57Beyond objective perceptual constants, coloration has a
profound influence on the mood of a space; it can calm or
stress, stimulate or add dramatic tension. Alongside immediate
emotional values, colour often exercises an influence through
synaesthesia, and can generate impressions of warmth or
cold, moistness or dryness, loudness or quietude. Colouristic
effects such as the earthiness of brown tones or the airiness
and expansiveness of pale blue may work via association.
Cultural codes and the symbolic function of colour may be
architecturally relevant, one example being the red carpet in
Europe, traditionally associated with authority and dignity.
On the other hand, there are no fundamentally ugly colours
- we grow accustomed even to colours that are initially expe-
rienced as unpleasant. Ultimately, any colour contributes to
the identification of a private room, district, city or landscape.
Differentiated colouristic effects are possible only under
conditions of adequate illumination. In half-light, colours
are greyed out, so that only light-dark contrasts remain per-
ceptible. The dependency of colouristic effects on the colour
of light is conditioned by the respective chromatic spectrum
of the light source, for example through changing daylight
under various weather conditions and times of year, by the
directionality of light and by geographic latitudes, or by the
absence of certain portions of the spectrum in artificial light
sources, and is often influenced by filtered layers and reflec-
tions. The colour of the light affects the chromatic mood of
entire spaces.
Individual elements, surfaces and bodies, meanwhile, are
characterized by the local colours of materials or through the
application of coloured layers. Colouristic effects are also
influenced by the matt gloss, roughness or smoothness of a
surface: the sand-like colour of ochre is relatively ineffec-
tive for smooth surfaces, while yellow is less stimulating on
coarse wall structures upon which raking light casts shadows.
In addition, a colour has less intensity on a large surface than
on a small one.