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Le Corbusier's Color Palette: A Guide for Architects and Designers

This article analyzes the colors selected by Le Corbusier and their functional significance. Some of the colors, such as the many shades of salmon, play a lesser role today than they did in Le Corbusier's time. However, the underlying design principles and the material-based aspects of color design underpinning the palette remain timeless.

Le Corbusier's architecture was not white

Le Corbusier's architecture was not purely white but rather a carefully composed ensemble of colored forms. While white was the main color, it was deliberately complemented by dark shades and chromatic colors to enhance the spatial effects of his functionalist designs, and add an emotional dimension. His color concepts were precisely orchestrated contrasts that highlighted the clarity and plasticity of his white architecture.
The radiance of his white surfaces emerged against backdrops of polychrome elements. This use of color was not a decorative supplement – it was an essential component of his architectural expression, guiding the eye through complex spatial structures. Le Corbusier's architecture was never monochrome; it thrived on the play of light and shadows, brightness and darkness, and the balance between chromatic and achromatic elements. This polychrome environment created the architecture’s spatial impact.

Which Colors did Le Corbusier Choose?

Le Corbusier, who advocated the use of new materials in other areas, grounded his architecture in a classical repertoire of primarily natural pigments. He attributed to these pigments a universal, cross-cultural significance that transcended passing trends. The names of these pigments appeared in his designs and specifications, while references to their significance were scattered throughout his writings. For Le Corbusier, 'paint' meant 'pigment paint,' and he believed that effectively working with color—and harnessing its spatial impact—required specific knowledge of how pigments interact with light and space. He systematically acquired this understanding through his artwork [1]. Paint colors for Le Corbusier were not an option but rather a primary means of spatial expression.
Le Corbusier‘s White
Each of his buildings featured a naturally sourced, local white that harmonized with its surroundings. Le Corbusier selected a white specific to the region to establish a connection with the environment. Renovations that rely solely on modern titanium white, a synthetic pigment in nearly every paint color on the market, fail to preserve the relationship he achieved using a natural white.
The shadow colors umber and ivory black
These natural pigments appeared in several degrees of lightness within each of his buildings. The logic behind this was that darker surfaces reflect little light and remain unobtrusive, making them useful as camouflage colors for confined spaces. Surfaces or entire structures painted with shades of gray and umber recede visually, allowing lighter and more colorful elements to take precedence, guiding the eyes toward lighter elements of beauty. A striking example is the earthy-red ramp in his Villa La Roche, whose curvature stands out against the muted, gray wall. Elements meant to be less conspicuous were painted with cool or warm grays.
Le Corbusier’s blues
After white and gray, blue was the most important color. Le Corbusier was familiar with the optically brightening effect of ultramarine, which he used on shadowed surfaces to lighten them. Deep ultramarine elements under the eaves of the Maison Blanche accentuated its contours in the evening light. A dark blue passageway leading to the maids' room in Villa La Roche looks welcoming despite its lack of lighting. Dark surfaces based on umber and ultramarine pigments enhanced the sculptural quality of the white elements of the entrance hall, allowing its forms to stand out like a statue in the foreground. Prussian blue, which creates warmer light blues, was used in Villa La Roche to connect walls perpendicular to windows to the bright blue sky outside. While ultramarine conveys a sense of lightness, Prussian blue, having an iron core, creates heavier, more stable spatial effects. Load-bearing masonry and design elements—such as table legs—were coated in Prussian blue to emphasize their stability. In contrast, ceilings and confined shadowed areas, brightened with ultramarine, receded visually, creating a sense of lightness
Ochre, red ochre, raw Sienna and burnt Sienna
Warm earth tones were important to Le Corbusier for two reasons. First, their use dated back to ancient times and evoked a sense of warmth and comfort. These colors embodied the qualities of natural building materials, making them familiar, timeless, and inherently constructive. Second, their warm yet subdued effect provided a striking contrast to the cool, crisp clarity of white forms. Against a backdrop of sandy ochre, the white forms stood out vividly, shining like pure crystals. This interplay of warmth and coolness created a dynamic visual harmony in his designs.
Le Corbusier’s greens
Here, too, function dictated the use of color. Le Corbusier’s preference for British Racing Green translated into the use of Dark Pine Green for walls or handrails. For surfaces designed to serve as a bridge between the built environment and nature, he employed lighter shades like Veronese Green or other hues created from green earth pigments. These colors were used strategically to extend the architectural space into the surrounding vegetation, as seen in the roof gardens of the Weissenhof estate, the base of the Villa Savoye, and the walls of the Pessac workers' housing estate.
Dynamic colors
Le Corbusier reserved the use of artificial, high-intensity pigments—such as vermilion, carmine, or chrome orange—for rare occasions. These vivid, contrasting colors were employed not to support the structure but to create striking, dynamic accents within his designs. This careful balance of natural and artificial colors reflects his restrained approach to color, where function and harmony with the environment remained central.

Pigment, Light, and Space: Le Corbusier’s Material Approach to Color

Le Corbusier’s approach to color is misappropriated when his specific pigment- based paints are reduced to abstract hues and applied to modern industrial contexts that rely on synthetic pigments rather than the natural, mineral-based artists’ pigments he originally employed. His vision of defining atmosphere and spatial relationships through the interplay of light and color hinges on the use of highly luminous, carefully selected pigments. Modern applications—such as light switches, watches, or wall colors created with synthetic tinting systems—fail to capture the essence of his original concept, which was deeply rooted in the precise coordination of pigments, light, and materiality. For Le Corbusier, the choice of a specific pigment, such as umber, ochre, or green earth, was as deliberate and significant as the selection of steel or wood. His designs specified pigment names for the surfaces of his architecture, emphasizing their material and atmospheric importance and underscoring that color was never merely decorative but an essential component of his design philosophy. A table in Arthur Rüegg’s comprehensive study on Le Corbusier’s polychromy lists the pigments found on Le Corbusier’s standardized, monochrome wallpapers, which he called “oil paint on rolls” [2]. The colors derived from these specific pigments are now meticulously reproduced by kt.COLOR, the company I founded. These timeless classics are defined by their expressive, natural pigments, which retain their power and relevance across architectural styles [3]. By adhering to Le Corbusier’s original material decisions, these colors continue to embody his vision, ensuring that the atmospheric and functional qualities of his work are preserved. In this way, color selection is not just about hue—it is fundamentally about pigment selection, material integrity, and the profound interaction of light, space, and volume.
Katrin Trautwein
Uster, February 28, 2025

Footnotes

[1] For a compendium of all fo Le Corbusier’s texts about color, polychrome architecture and color functions, see: Jan de Heer, 2009: The Architectonic Colour: Polychromy in the Purist Architecture of Le Corbusier, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam.
[2] The pigments used for the Salubra wallpaper colors according to Katrin Trautwein research using microchemical and microscopic analyses: Arthur Rüegg (Ed.), 2016: Le Corbusier: Polychromie architecturale: Farbenklaviaturen von 1931 und 1959, 3rd revised edition, Birkhäuser, Basel, p. 180. The colors shown in the book are the original paint colors researched and handcrafted by kt.COLOR. The book (Germen/English/French) can be purchased on kt.COLOR’s website.
[3] The color stripes are RGB approximations of colors found on wall samples from Le Corbusier's architectural works and on Salubra Le Corbusier wallpapers from 1931 and 1959. The originals are in the kt.COLOR archives in Uster. The analyses were conducted between 1999 and 2012 under the direction of Dr. Katrin Trautwein, the founder of kt.COLOR. The results were confirmed by the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris. The colors in Villa La Roche and Maison Blanche today were made by kt.COLOR based on these findings.