CHROMOPHOBIA

“Whiteness does not exist. The modernist white wall can be seen as the most colourful surface and a screen in which the room reflects.”

Pawel Szubert is a Polish designer currently living in Rotterdam. For his master thesis project in Interior Architecture and Retail Design at PZI he realized an installation to investigate the modernist whiteness and “the relations between light, colour and human perception, as well as our cultural and social precognition of these phenomena.” An empty white box with the possibility to close its doors after entering provide an environment of intimacy that highlights the chromatic experience inside. Although the whiteness of the paint, the space is not white nor static.

“It is exposed to the dynamic, coloured light that fills its void. The interior, despite its emptiness, palpitates. Only one wall stays white. Contrary to its surroundings it does not change, trying to overcome the active environment. The wall is cancelling its own surroundings, actively reacting and trying to bleach itself as much as possible.

As the colour is not a property of the objects; instead of Le Corbusier’s Ripolin paint, light is the mean used to bleach the space. However, the resulting whiteness is not achieved by the use of white light. Projected light is not merely white, but becomes white only when hitting the wall that is altered by the surrounding colours. White is the amalgamate of all the existing colours. Therefore, the appearing colours are not removed but supplemented with the rest of the spectrum. This whiteness is a charged and precisely constructed mixture. ”

For more info and projects visit his website!

 

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