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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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More from @culturaltutor

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Jun 3

The truth about minimalism:

"Minimalism" is badly misunderstood, but that's not really anybody's fault, because we're living in a time where it feels like minimalism is the dominant aesthetic.

Everything from buildings to bollards are designed the same way: simple, no details, little variety or colour.

And so, because they're simple, we call it "minimalism".

But minimalism was never just about keeping things simple.

The point of minimalism is using beautiful materials to make useful things (like this chair), not making things as bland and greyscale as possible.

Read 25 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Mar 3

Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser is the best modern architect you've never heard of.

His philosophy was simple. As he said:

"The straight line is godless and immoral."

If there's any building you can think of, he made it look like something from a dream...

Accommodation at a children's hospital in Essen, Germany, from 2005:

A kindergarten in Frankfurt, opened in 1995:

Read 23 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 31, 2025

We spend more than 90% of our time inside, so why do we design so many of our interiors like this?

Grey carpets, white walls, harsh lighting.

It's generic, boring, and genuinely bad for our physical and psychological health...

Not all interiors look like this, but too many do, and more all the time.

Grey carpets, white walls, harsh lighting, neutral colours for details, everything plastic, shiny, and rectangular.

This has become the standard for new buildings (and refurbishments) around the world.

A common response is that some people like it, or at least don't mind it.

Maybe, but that's the problem.

The sum of all tastes is no taste at all, and if our aim is simply to make things that people "don't mind" then we end up with blandness.

Read 22 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 21, 2025

The world's most famous neoclassical buildings are kind of boring and generic when you actually look at them.

It's even hard to tell them apart: which one below is Versailles, or Buckingham Palace?

So here's why neoclassical architecture (although it's nice) is overrated:

Buckingham Palace, despite being one of the world's most famous and visited buildings, is essentially quite boring and uninspiring from the outside.

There's a certain stateliness to it, but (like most big neoclassical buildings) it's really just a box wrapped in pilasters.

The same is true of Versailles.

Again, it's evidently pretty (largely thanks to the colour of its stone) but there's something weirdly plain about it, almost standardised.

Plus the emphasis on its horizontal lines makes it feel very low-lying, undramatic, and flat.

Read 26 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 17, 2025

These aren't castles, palaces, or cathedrals.

They're all water towers, literally just bits of infrastructure relating to water management.

Is it worth the additional cost and resources to make things look like this... or is it a waste?

These old water towers are an architectural subgenre of their own.

There are hundreds, mostly Neo-Gothic, and all add something wonderful to the skylines of their cities.

Like the one below in Bydgoszcz, Poland, from 1900.

But, most importantly, they're just infrastructure.

We don't think of infrastructure as something that can improve how a town looks and feels.

Infrastructure is necessary to make life convenient; but also, we believe, definitionally boring.

These water towers prove that doesn't have to, and shouldn't be, the case.

Read 24 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 8, 2025

If one thing sums up the 21st century it's got to be all these default profile pictures.

You've seen them literally thousands of times, but they're completely generic and interchangeable.

Future historians will use them to symbolise our current era, and here's why...

To understand what any society truly believed, and how they felt about humankind, you need to look at what they created rather than what they said.

Just as actions instead of words reveal who a person really is, art always tells you what a society was actually like.

And this is particularly true of how they depicted human beings — how we portray ourselves.

That the Pharaohs were of supreme power, and were worshipped as gods far above ordinary people, is made obvious by the sheer size and abundance of the statues made in their name:

Read 23 tweets

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