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The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Jul 26, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X

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Has the world become less colourful?

(This graph shows the colour of objects over time)

If you feel like the world seems increasingly colourless, you're not just imagining it.

Take cars, for example.

Greyscale colours now make up three quarters of cars produced globally, compared to less than 50% in the past.

Just look at a parking lot from the 1980s compared to one today.

And the change has happened to interior design.

These were the most popular colours of the paint brand Dulux in 2020:

And here are the most popular kitchen paint colours in the UK, from 2019-20.

Just compare a typical 1970s home to a modern designer home.

While it is completely understandable if you don't miss the garish colours of bygone eras, it is interesting to note the change.

Similarly, there is a trend of whitewashing everything - be it made of wood, brick, plaster, or whatever.

While grey is now the most common carpet colour:

Neutral colours are by far the most popular when it comes to clothing:

Even McDonald's is less vibrant than it used to be!

This trend includes just about everything.

Consider this study, which analysed the colour of everyday objects over time.

Its conclusion is clear: neutral and greyscale colours *are* more common than ever.

What has caused this change?

And do you think it's for better or worse?

If you found this thought-provoking then you'll like my free weekly newsletter, Areopagus.

Seven short lessons every Friday to make your week more interesting, useful, and beautiful.

culturaltutor.com/areopagus

And here is a link to the fascinating study referenced in this thread.

lab.sciencemuseum.org.uk/colour-shape-u…

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The Cultural Tutor

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Mar 31

The Eiffel Tower was completed 136 years ago today.

It's now a global symbol of France and over 7 million tourists visit it every year.

But people hated the Eiffel Tower at first — they called it humiliating, modern, and "too American"...

The Eiffel Tower was started in 1887 and finished two years later, on 31 March 1889.

This was an unprecedented structure and a challenge to engineering unlike anything attempted before.

Upon completion it was 300 metres tall and immediately became the world's tallest building.

No structure in history had ever been more than 200 metres tall, let alone 300, and the Eiffel Tower's record wasn't overtaken until the Chrysler Building was finished in 1930.

It still dominates the skyline of Paris nearly a century and a half later.

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The Cultural Tutor

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Mar 12

These buildings, from around the world, look like they're either ancient or medieval.

But they were all built in the last few decades...

The Ranganathaswamy Temple in Tiruchirappalli, India, has a history going back centuries.

But its tallest gopuram (a form of monumental gateway tower) was only completed in 1987.

You can see the older part at the bottom; its base is several hundred years old.

Warsaw, the capital of Poland, was devastated during WWII — and its Old Town was almost completely destroyed.

But, over the course of three decades, it was scrupulously rebuilt, even becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.

Read 24 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Mar 9

571 years ago today Amerigo Vespucci was born.

He's the guy the Americas are named after.

But it was basically an accident — and he didn't even know about it...

As with the other continents, it isn't completely clear how the Americas got their name.

But the most widely accepted theory is that America was named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who travelled there twice in the late 1490s and early 1500s.

This Amerigo Vespucci was born on 9th March 1454 in Florence, northern Italy, the home of the Renaissance.

He knew members of the famous de' Medici Family, and through them ended up working in Seville, southern Spain, where he may have worked with Christopher Columbus.

Read 20 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Mar 5

The Brutalist is about an architect who studied at the Bauhaus.

Its protagonist is fictional, but the Bauhaus was real.

What was it? The most influential design school in history.

So, from fonts to furniture, this is how Bauhaus created the aesthetic of the modern world...

During the 19th century architecture, art, and design were all about the past.

This was the age of Revivalism — everything was built or designed in historical styles.

And it was also a maximalist age: decoration, detail, colour, and ornamentation were in fashion.

The first rebellion against Revivalism was Art Nouveau — literally "New Art" in French.

It emerged in Belgium in the 1890s and soon took over the world.

This was a new style not chained to the past, a luxurious aesthetic defined by flowing lines and natural forms.

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The Cultural Tutor

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Feb 26

Mont-Saint-Michel in France is one of the most famous places in the world.

You've seen thousands of photos of it... but what is Mont-Saint-Michel? Who built it? And when?

This is a brief history of the world's strangest village...

First — where is it?

Mont-Saint-Michel (which is the name of the island, the village, and the abbey) is a tidal island off the coast of Normandy, in northern France.

"Tidal" means that it is surrounded by sea or by land depending on the tides.

Legend says that during the 8th century a bishop called Autbert of Avranches had a dream in which the Archangel Saint Michael told him to build a shrine on the island.

The Archangel Michael, who defeated Satan in battle, was a popular saint at the time.

Read 25 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Feb 19

This unusual house in Turin was built 123 years ago.

It's the perfect example of a kind of architecture unique to Italy, known as the "Liberty Style".

How to make ordinary buildings more interesting? The Liberty Style has an answer...

During the 1890s there was an artistic and architectural revolution in Europe: Art Nouveau.

It means "New Art" in French, and that's exactly what it was — a whole new approach to design, whether of buildings, furniture, clothes, sculpture, or crockery.

There were many genres of Art Nouveau, but what they had in common was a commitment to traditional craftsmanship, the embrace of new materials like iron, and a turn toward flowing designs inspired by nature.

Like the Hôtel Tassel in Brussels, designed by Victor Horta, from 1893:

Read 24 tweets

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