ABSTRACT
The inability to produce a precise psychology of color - to say that red is always exciting, for example - has never prevented its use. After all, architects apply color to buildings every day, inside and out. The lack of an explicit discussion of color among architects means that issues are mostly encountered as questions of method, at the moment of color selection, and this lends even greater strength to unexamined concepts such as 'natural' or 'therapeutic' color. The logic of color concepts remains open and arbitrary at the most fundamental level, a fact exemplified by Wilhelm Ostwald's attempt early in the twentieth century to convert his own preferences into universal color rules. Establishing a connection between color methods and theories of perception is the very premise of modern color systems. Ostwald only became seriously interested in color at the end of a very successful career as a chemist for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1909.
