The British Architectural Library
Drawings Collection
Heinz Gallery
21 Portman Square, London W1H9HF
Curator: Jill Lever
March 4 - April 7 1993
Henri Ciriani's exhibit
I am not a black and white drawing
architect.
Even if colour is not central to my work it
is "indispensable". It is always present in all stages of the working
process.
Once I started having some assurance about
my architecture, colour, which until then was applied "on" surfaces,
began to interest me as an identifying code* for circulation systems for
example, or as a possibility of "paying back" the debt we architects
owe towards the avant-garde artists of our century by using colour
"in" space.
The five drawings from Péronne's working
process will explain maybe better than words the "place" of colour in
my work:
 |
| N°1 - Street entrance |
Here colour is the
colour of materials: brick, white concrete, grey stone, glass and marble. In
the process this is the moment for subdued relationships. Importance of a
realistic approach.
 |
| N°2 - Entrance, first project |
Colour used in
order to identify an activity.
It also has the
responsibility of covering a certain area. The use of opposites (green/black)
to detach the form givers from the enveloping surfaces also allows for testing
the potential of this built-in furniture of becoming more important by
attaining the status of an artistic work equalling it with the more permanent
elements of the building.
 |
| N°3 - Entrance, definitive solution |
The primary
colours of the lift are the same as the lift in drawing #5. It wished to convey
the idea of metal machines, as artistic as the first robots...
 |
| N°4 - Hall, first project |
Colour is not the
real colour. It is just a working device: giving volume to a plane.
 |
| N°5 - Hall, second project |
Through colour we
are trying to give the space a more lively feeling in order to contrast with
the more spiritual monochromatic museum spaces. Colour here is spread around
the lift. We tried to suggest the playful images of flag messages from ships at
sea as our mind recalls them from films of the First World War, albeit
excluding a childish approach to coloured forms.
Henri Ciriani
Paris, February
1993
* These notes do
not refer to my work in housing where colour accomplishes very functional tasks
such as framing, differentiating layers, distinguishing the thickness in walls,
blending into the sky, warming up, preventing dust, marrying incompatible
woods, illuminating, etc.
 |
| South façade |
 |
| Entrance upper level |
 |
| Lift lower level |
