Color design in the Bauhaus laboratory of wall-painting

Representation is the weak element in color design. It actually seems to condition the expression of color in the project. The la always favored the design as a media between design and building, by the use of conventional codes and symbolic languages, which are able to unambiguously describe formal characteristics that couldn't possibly be described in detail in the technical representation on scale. Even for the representation of the color, there is a long tradition of attempts to obtain an unambiguous identification through geometric conventions, mathematical coordinates and numerical formulas, but this can only marginally affect the tradition of architecture and interior design. This is due to difficulties in reproducing the elaborate, which forced to use watercolor drawings (colored or otherwise) in the original. The effects of representation tools on the project, and therefore the possibility of remote control of the color, required an investigation of the color’s representation when it becomes a decisive feature in the characterization of the inhabited space and therefore a research element for architectural and interior design. With regards to the relation between color and design, the research of avant-garde artists of the early '900 is significant as the contribution of the painting played a decisive role in the general renewal of architecture and applied arts. In the crucial years of the birth of the Modern Movement, the activity of the Laboratory of mural painting at the Bauhaus reinforced the concept of color as an active element of “building”by replacing the ornament to emphasize the articulation of the constructive elements of the room. The research in design required the development of an experimental approach to the color representation, with a free reinterpretation of conventional drawing codes. The research aims to investigate how the lack of conventional references on the one hand, and, on the other, the cultural contribution of painting and interior decorating, encouraged the experimentation with new representation codes.