The colour of food: last layer on the palimpsest of St. Caterina markect in Barcelona

Abstract

Throughout history, food has been an outstanding artistic inspiration source for many artistic disciplines, used as an argument to train with colour. The presence of food as a decorative element in architecture goes beyond a simple functional relationship with the use of space and is a useful tool for organizing colour composition. Examples include colored cornucopias of classical architecture, Biblical food in medieval fresco paintings (grape, bread, fish, etc.), painted still life in illustrated housing, glazed ceramics in modernist markets, etc. This research aims to understand in depth the colour composition of a contemporary building, the St. Caterina Market (Barcelona, 2004) by architect Benedetta Tagliabue, who develops a poetic reinterpretation of the colours of a food stall. We investigate the colour of the building at three levels. Firstly through the identification of physical reality: the colorimetric characteristics of the tiles, their proportion and distribution, etc. Secondly, through the analysis of the compositional strategies and means, covering the different stages of the designing process: the choice of an interesting visual reference, digital image processing, three-dimensional projections, technology for colour reproduction, craftsmanship work, construction, etc. Finally, describing the intentions that encourage the provision of colours, and have been expressed by the architect herself, with whom we maintain a close working relationship. The result is a building understood as a palimpsest, which shows the accumulation of the various historical facts as strata. The substrate corresponding to the contemporaneousness is the roof, which plays virtually the chromatic experiences that take place in the inner space, and stages the lower level. The colour of a market that is transparent, thanks to technology, to express a final image, as a tele-reality. An interesting thought about contemporary perception, that blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction.