Colour News May 2026 - No. 3
Colour related news and events
On this last day of May, we bring you another edition of ICA-Belgium Colour News.
We invite you to read an article from the Collection of Essays dedicated to Josef Albers, this time by Maria Zurbuchen-Henz.
Introducing Marlène Samson, one of the winners of our Albers Accessibility Awards. Last call for our Albers Accessibility Awards for early-career practitioners, the applications will close at midnight of June 1.
Don’t miss our Colour Circle Book Club today!
Warm greetings from Belgium,
-your ICA-Belgium team
Collection of Essays on Albers
This essay is part of a Collection of Essays dedicated to Josef Albers, where the organisers of the workshop Interaction of Colour in Space share their thoughts about Josef Albers and his impact on their work.
Hommage to Josef Albers
By Maria Zurbuchen-Henz
Sharp-cut grey, blue, white and light blue or vibrant transitions of purple, magenta and pink - as a viewer, I feel the magic of the colours; as an architect, I am, in a way, drawn into a three-dimensional polychrome space.
Albers’ Homage for a Square series is based on geometrically composed figures with no overlapping colours. The surface of the canvas is articulated by contiguous yet distinct, independent colours. In addition to the picturesque effect and the play of light, Albers introduces the illusion of perspective. The artist does not confine himself to arranging concentric squares; on the contrary, the squares are shifted and grounded in perspective. Familiar with the drawing conventions of diagonal lines and the vanishing point, we can read the pictorial space as an architectural one. As the vanishing point corresponding to eye level is set low, one gets the impression of a deep, relatively high polychrome interior that one could walk into. (You can easily check that this is true, by turning the picture upside down, in that case, you fly into the picture).
Long regarded as opposing forces, Albers considers the concepts of Venetian colore and Florentine disegno as equally important. This is precisely what makes his two-dimensional pictorial space relevant for comparison with three-dimensional architectural space. Inspired by Albers’ paintings, I would like to extend his topic of Colour Interaction into the polychrome interior. What is the common ground between visual art and architecture? Is it possible to transfer painting concepts to architecture?
Pictorial space functions as an optical illusion of volume and depth. On the canvas, colours lie side by side on a single plane; but the painter can break free from the constraints of two-dimensionality by choosing the right palette.
Architectural space is real, its elements are mass and void, light and shade. How does colour bring an additional quality into built space? What happens when you add illusionistic effects to the physical space using colour? According to Le Corbusier, the lit wall constitutes the architectural game. Colour is another form of light and shadow and therefore space-forming. Blue steps back, red steps forward: the transforming effect on volume, space and ambiance is based on optical illusion, creating in the mind another appreciation of the object. Since colour modifies the form, the spatial principle and the colour concept are inseparably linked.
In architecture, colours don’t lie side by side on a singular plane, but they are arranged in layers extending into the depth, face each other, or interact diagonally across the corner. That is why the interaction of colour in a built environment can be far more complex than in a painting.
Material or immaterial? In the discussion about the role of colour in architecture, we need a deeper understanding of what colour is and how it works with both its tangible and intangible properties. On the one hand, we deal with colour in its material appearance, the color pigment that forms the outermost skin of architecture as a painted layer. In contrast to this - or even as a complement – is the colour of light. As an immaterial phenomenon, it influences the colour effect of an architectural object. A coloured light can occur as a concomitant of a coloured paint (for example, in the form of radiation) or also as an independent light-colour. What is the relationship between the geometry of the room, the colour tone and the light effect? How far does the sphere of influence of applied colour go in an interior space? Sculptural effects are enhanced by light-dark contrasts while pictorial effects by colour gradients or colour contrasts. Bright colours can produce atmospheric colour-light impressions varying from sharpness to blurriness. To summarise, subtractive colour mixing of pigments (material) and additive light-mixing (immaterial) do not have the same impact, however, both phenomena can occur simultaneously.
Should colour strengthen and clarify the architectural form, comment and interpret it in a playful way, or maybe even manipulate it? What is certain however, is that colour is very important because it acts strongly upon our sensitivities. We could take Le Corbusier and Barragán as examples. Both need white as a neutral background, but their use of colour is quite different. In Le Corbusier’s design method, manipulations of spatial perception are allowed, but they must not interfere with the form through strong side effects. In order to maintain the tectonic character of his architecture, Le Corbusier would use sharp-cut, independent colour surfaces (bound to the entire wall as a whole) and apply a well-tempered palette originated from traditional mineral pigments. In contrast, the Mexican architect Luis Barrágan is not afraid of bold, artificial colours and vibrant colour-light effects. In his monastery chapel, he introduces yellow light produced by coloured glass panes and a golden altar triptych. The yellow light blends with the colours of the walls, causing their surfaces to shimmer: this creates a magical chromatic continuity that, as the day progresses, imperceptibly traverses an infinite spectrum of yellow, red and orange reaching its climax in gold.
This year the Albers Workshop Interaction of Colour in Space, organised by ICA Belgium and the Deutsches Farbenzentrum, offers an opportunity for design-related experimenting with cardboard, coloured paper strips and plexiglass.
In terms of colour and light, practical workshops show that the architectural model, sometimes hastily dismissed as anachronistic, still provides irreplaceable insights. The main advantages of experimenting with analog models are being very close, at eye level, and obtaining an instant response.
- Maria Zurbuchen-Henz is architect in Lausanne and professor at Haus der Farbe Fachschule für Gestaltung in Handwerk und Architektur in Zürich, Switzerland. She conveys colour culture in public spaces and buildings and leads workshops on the subject of colour and space, at Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart (2026, 2024), Pavillon Le Corbusier Zürich (2021), Universiteit Antwerpen (2019), Université de Strasbourg (2017). Together with Juan Serra Lluch, she will co-lead the workshop Colour in Space, June 27-28, at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop, Germany.
More about the workshop:
Introducing Winners of Albers Accessibility Awards
Marlène Samson
We are happy to introduce to you one of the winners of our Albers Accessibility Awards. With the support of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, the awards aim to support the next generation of creative talent in accessing the high-level colour education.
Marlène Samson is an interior architect based in Brussels, with a professional practice extending across Belgium, France and Germany. Currently preparing a PhD in architecture within the LRA at ENSA Toulouse, under the supervision of Andrea Urlberger and Laura Girard, in partnership with Les Chaux de Saint-Astier, one of France’s leading lime and render manufacturers.
Entitled Saying Colour, Making Colour: Urban Colour Charters Challenged by Materiality, the research investigates how colour is being transformed from prescription to built reality. Through a comparative study of the urban colour charters of Toulouse and Bordeaux, the project explores how colour, once defined in regulatory or advisory documents, becomes material, spatial and perceptible architecture.
I am very happy to take part in the workshop Interaction of Colour in Space and to have been selected for the Albers Accessibility Awards. I would like to thank the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, ICA Belgium and the Deutsches Farbenzentrum for supporting and highlighting emerging research such as mine, especially within the context of the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, whose legacy resonates deeply with the theoretical foundations of my PhD research.
This work enters into dialogue with the practice of Anni Albers, whose explorations already questioned the relationships between material, fabrication and the perception of colour. Just as weaving allows colour to emerge through structure, fibre and process, lime reveals hues that are intrinsically tied to material composition and modes of fabrication. The research therefore raises a broader question: to what extent can an urban colour charter truly account for the material processes that shape colour itself?
Participating in this workshop, surrounded by specialists such as Maria Zurbuchen-Henz and Juan Serra Lluch, undoubtedly constitutes one of the best possible introductions to my upcoming research project.
-Marlène Samson
LinkedIn / Instagram / Saint Astier / Laboratoire de Recherche en Architecture - ENSA Toulouse
Last Call: Albers Accessibility Awards for Early-Career Professionals
The applications close on June 1, at 23:59 CEST.
The Albers Accessibility Awards, supported by the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation, are dedicated to early-career professionals in architecture, design, and art.
The awards offer two subsidised places for our upcoming two-day intensive workshop Interaction of Colour in Space, taking place at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop, Germany, on June 27–28, 2026. Successful applicants pay a reduced fee of just €40 (standard fee: €350).
*Please note that travel and accommodation are not covered by the award.
Who can apply
Practitioners in architecture, design, or art who completed their degree no more than five years ago (graduating year 2020 or later).
How to apply
Submit the following to ica@ica-belgium.org with the subject line: Albers Accessibility Award – Young Professional – [Your Full Name]
A short essay (max. 250 words): Describe a question about colour in space that is currently relevant to your professional practice, and explain how participating in this workshop would help you explore or advance it.
A link to your professional profile (LinkedIn, portfolio website, or institutional page).
Application Deadline: 1 June 2026 (end of day, CEST)
Notification of Results: Successful applicants will be notified by email no later than 8 June 2026.
Colour Circle Book Club Meeting Today
Our first Colour Circle Book Club Meeting will take place online on Sunday, 31 May 2026, at 14:00 CEST.
Join us for our first Colour Circle Book Club meeting this Sunday, 31st of May, at 14:00 CEST. We will meet online and we hope many of you will be able to join us.
The book we will be discussing is Color for Architects by Juan Serra Lluch.
Don’t worry if you haven’t read the book yet, there will be plenty to talk about. We hope you will tell us about your favourite books on colour, about the ones you are reading now and those that you would very much like to read. As all colour and book lovers know, there is always more to learn and see. Let us chose our next book together!
ICA-Belgium members and paid subscribers have already received the email with the link to join the online meeting. If you haven’t received it, contact us at ica@ica-belgium.org.
As the Colour Circle Book Club is designed to be private, there will be no recording. To keep it relaxed and safe, it is open only to ICA-Belgium members and paid subscribers (for € 5 per month or € 45 per year). To join the Colour Circle Book Club, become an ICA-Belgium member, or a paid newsletter subscriber.
More information:
We look forward to meeting you this Sunday and let colour spark new conversations!
ICA-Belgium is a community of colour lovers that share a common interest in colour, spanning the fields of art, design, architecture, science, industry, education, linguistics, philosophy, history…
Join us and get to know other colour professionals and enthusiasts from all around the world (yes, we have international membership!), share about your work, develop opportunities for collaboration, build connections and contribute to a dynamic colour platform.
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