I See a Red Door and I Want It Painted BlackStella Paul6

Black: Architecture in Monochrome14

Index220

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Larraz ArquitectosPamplona, Spain 2010

Neutelings Riedijk ArchitectsHarlingen, The Netherlands 1998

Homeless Shelter Roads and Waterworks Support Center

This “silent box,” a homeless shelter, located in a semiurban area of Pamplona, Spain, is constructed of black corrugated aluminum, offering minimal inward visibility in order to protect and nurture the dignity and privacy of the temporary residents. Aluminum lattice structures over the windows serve to further respect the privacy of occupants and maintain security, while also continuing the build-ing’s uninterrupted black rectangular form. Though a homeless shelter may seem to be a straightforward architectural program requiring places for residents to temporarily sleep, bathe, and dine, this building illustrates just how complex an undertaking it is to design a shelter that functions efficiently, serving the needs of its

residents and administrators, while avoiding feeling like a prison. The 10,225-square-foot (950-square-meter) building is comprised of a series of stacked rectangular boxes in which a central interior nucleus holds administrative functions, while spaces that extend from it contain the living, dining, communal, and leisure spaces. The homeless shelter serves the needs of both short- and long-term resi-dents who occupy different sections of the building, and who enter and exit the structure on opposite sides. On the ground and first floors, short-term users have access to eighteen double rooms, while long-term residents, housed in a smaller volume, have access to nine double rooms.

As a regional support center for a busy public works department, this low-slung trapezoidal structure was designed to support a number of disparate functions under a single continuous volume. The tapered, single-story building is clad in black corrugated metal panels so that the structure itself becomes a backdrop for the fluorescent painted roadwork vehicles that are constantly moving about the perimeter and docking in the large niches carved from the sides of the building. Though black might seem like a surprising choice for a government agency, The Netherlands has a long history of black buildings, most notably the black rural barns that were once a common site. The building echoes the height and shape of the typical dike, a common

feature of the landscape that surrounds this building. The ziggurat shape of the central volume allows for integration of both interior ga-rages and workshops, which have high ceilings and expansive rooms, and administrative offices, whose lower ceilings achieve an intimacy that the industrial portions of the center lack.

Ellis and Clark with Owen WilliamsLondon, England, UK 1932

Daily Express Building

The Daily Express Building, which served as the Fleet Street head-quarters for the eponymous newspaper until 1989, is a rare surviving example of the Streamline Moderne style of the age. Originally, the building was intended to be a traditional steel-framed structure faced in Portland stone, in keeping with the style of the neighboring build-ings. The constraints of the narrow site, however, prohibited moving forward with the original plans, which did not account for a continu-ous basement space to house the printing presses. Sir Owen Williams, an architect and engineer, was brought on to the project to solve these problems. Williams’s new scheme included the distinctive black and mirrored exterior glazing, comprised of opaque and black Vitrolite

glasses and chromium, in addition to a large ground-floor entrance with a distinctive chrome canopy designed by Robert Atkinson, which welcomed visitors beneath the iconic Daily Express signage. The building’s innovative steel and glass curtain wall was radical for its time. Shiplike in its curvilinear shape, the structure was meant to be as striking during the day as the night.

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Gri e Zucchi Architetti AssociatiUdine, Italy 2013

Faber Headquarters

In order to create an enhanced sense of presence, this complex of interconnected rectangular volumes, built as the headquarters for Italian steel cylinder manufacturer Faber Industrie, was constructed of black elements. Positioned among farmlands, just at the edge of a growing industrial park in Udine, Italy, the architects accommodated the massive surrounding warehouses and factories by reconciling sheer size with a sense of gravity and mystery. Facades are built of black concrete and black glass, each installed as equally sized 13-foot by 28-inch (4-meter by 70-centimeter) panels and are connect-ed by ¾-inch (20-millimeter) joints. The equality of paneling blurs the distinction between glass and concrete, while the gaps between them

help to ventilate the structure. During the day, sunlight reflects across the buildings, rendering most details irrelevant, while at night, interior illumination reveals the airy interior, erasing weight of the heavy con-crete. Composed of two elongated and flattened volumes connected by an enclosed hallway, the industrial campus centers around two semi-enclosed courtyards, one on either side of the connecting hall-way. On one side, the so-called “hard” courtyard is a concrete common area lined with black poplar trees. The second “soft” court-yard is covered with grass and affords views of the farmlands and mountains beyond.

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A-cero Madrid, Spain 2011

Oller & PejicYucca Valley, CA, USA2014

Concrete House IIBlack Desert House

This family home, cast entirely in tinted grayish-black concrete, is located just outside of Madrid in Pozuelo de Alarcon. Comprised of a series of interconnected trapezoids, the monolithic residence is placed at the peak of a terraced plot. A contiguous central volume forms the cavernous interior, which appears to be supported on one side by six triangular concrete extensions—like flying buttresses—that together act as exterior dividers between sections of the interior program: living room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms. The uniform, dull concrete coupled with its low-slung, partially underground profile looks as if a wartime bunker had been unearthed and refashioned for luxury living. Large sliding glass panels on the opposite side of

the house look out on to a contemporary pond. Sweeping lawns surround the entirety of the building, with greenery extending up a sloped exterior wall onto the roof where a garden is placed. The dark grayish-black and white interior features built-in furniture, including a dining room table and bar, fashioned in trapezoidal shapes that echo the overall structure. An underground multicar garage is partially illu-minated by strips of blue lighting that delineate parking spaces.

Built on an isolated 2.5-acre (1-hectare) site, in a niche carved between rock formations in the California High Desert, Black Desert House was inspired by the client’s elegant goal to build a house like a shadow. Observing that in the desert a shadow is often the only resting place for the eye, the intention of a black house was to act as a similar re-spite, not only from the relentless desert sun, but from the stress of urban life. In order to mitigate the heat absorbed by the black con-crete exterior, deeper and wider insulation cavities were combined with sprayed foam insulation. Spread out over a single level, rooms are arranged along a linear program, with the kitchen and dining room as the central space from which bedrooms radiate. The living

room, defined around the client’s mandate that it was to be a “chic sleeping bag,” is built into the sloping site and affords panoramic views of the landscape. Rooms wrap around a central inner court-yard that acts as an intermediate space before entry, and provides protection from the sun and climate. In the evening, the house com-pletely disappears into the night, with only the faintest impression of structure lit by the moon and stars. Interiors are also executed in black and gray so that even the inside of the house recedes into the shadows during the day.

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Funningur, Eysturoy, Faroe Islands, Denmark 1847

Funningur Church

Located on a windswept promontory on the northwest coast of the island of Eysturoy in the small village of Funningur in the Faroe Islands chain, Funningur Church is typical of Faroese parishes as it features the distinctive black tar timber construction topped with an energy efficient turf roof. Constructed in 1847, this church traditionally sepa-rates parishioners by gender: it contains ten pews for men and nine pews for women. The church is the newest of the ten old wooden churches still standing in the Faroe Islands. A small village cemetery lies next to the church, though the River Stora separates it from the building. Small local churches like this one are found in almost every Faroese village and are typically constructed of basalt stone and

wooden cladding. The protective black tar treatment is coupled with a high degree of craftsmanship demonstrated in the delicate metal hardware and ornamentation. The intricately carved interior wood-work, motifs and styles which resemble techniques used in boat-building, is due to the fact that the local craftsmen were, and still are, maritime builders by trade. Each church is distinctive in its color palette or interior motifs—some feature whales and other ocean themes—and most are topped with an iron weathervane that fea-tures the year of consecration.

Crosson Clarke and CarnachanMatapouri Beach, New Zealand 2011

Tutukaka House

Wrapped in a skin of black-stained shiplap cladding, this holiday home is built for weekend retreats. The owners wanted a home that felt open and unfettered, while also secure when not in use. Like an old sailing ship, docked eternally on a windswept dune, the deep, black, weathered exterior gives the residence the appearance of an ancient mariner’s vessel as filtered through a contemporary lens. The wooden timber walls, constructed of milled Eucalyptus Saligna, are rough-hewn and uneven in texture, and find counterbalance in the clean, rectangular volumes and wide open living spaces. A central corridor, like a spine, acts as an organizing throughway, with commu-nal spaces and bedrooms placed off it to maximize carefully chosen

views of the landscape. A number of translucent panels in the walls and roof increase light in hallways and throughout the house. When Tutukaka House is in use, a series of sliding panels and hinged shutters, also black, disappear to reveal large windows and outdoor spaces. When needed, the home can be closed off like a bunker to mitigate unwanted intrusion.

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Jarmund/Vigsnæs ArkitekterThorpeness, Suffolk, England, UK 2011

Hofsos, Iceland1800s

Dune HouseVesturfarasetrid Museum

The black, asymmetrical multiplaned roofline of Dune House appears as if its top half has detached from its foundation and is floating above the sands. It is in dialogue with the local, traditional gabled roofs of Thorpeness and the surrounding mock-Tudor residences, many of which were built in the 1920s. The black upper half of the home is clad in vertically oriented larch timber slats and coated in black Falun stain. Each of the four gables includes a sheared off, canted plane that is skinned in stainless steel panels. This combina-tion of angles—some a deep, light-absorbing matte black and others shining brightly in the seaside sun—give the upper volume an off-kilter, dynamic sense of movement. While the private spaces are concealed

in the black upper structure, communal areas are placed on the lower floor, part of which is submerged into the dune itself. The living, dining, and kitchen areas are surrounded entirely by a series of floor, to-ceiling glass panels, which slide back to open the lower rooms to the elements. Outdoor spaces are arranged according to orientation toward the light, with terraces placed at the eastern and western edges of the house.

This black building, located at water’s edge in the village of Hofsos, houses the Icelandic Emigration Center, a museum dedicated to the stages of Icelandic emigrants’ sometimes-harrowing journey to North America. The building is a typical Icelandic multigabled timber struc-ture, whose black color is the result of having been weatherproofed traditionally with tar. The first versions of this style were seen on the Icelandic landscape in the eighteenth century when urbanization took hold and some Danish merchants began importing timber for con-struction of homes and businesses. From 1870 until 1914, nearly one quarter of Iceland’s population emigrated to escape poverty and servitude. Rigid social structures and the onslaught of a particularly

harsh winter in the late eighteenth century and a series of unusually cold summers, coupled with a number of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, combined to spark the mass exodus of Iceland’s poor-est citizens. The eruption of Askja Volcano in 1875 covered most of the eastern portion of the island in ash and killed livestock by the thousands. Most of the country’s emigrants ended up in Canada and the United States, with the equivalent population of Iceland—three hundred thousand people—settling outside of the country.

Black is sky so stars can shine Tiger’s stripes and butterflies Black is brushed on sparrow’s wings Black is many things.

Black is writing on a page Berries sweet and clouds that rain Black is crying when you sing Black is anything.

Lena Horne, “Black Is” (1917–2010)

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Rudy RicciottiMarseille, France 2013

Studio Odile DecqRennes, France 2012

MuCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations)

FRAC Bretagne

This blackish-gray building, a museum focused on the history and culture of the Mediterranean, is located on the banks of Marseille’s millennia-old harbor at the end of an historical pier where immigrants from throughout the region have continued to seek refuge in France and Europe beyond. The museum is accessed via a thin footbridge that emanates from Fort Saint-Jean and spans the waters below, piercing the roof of the building’s chaotic skin. The main structure, a rounded glass cube, is covered on two sides by a delicate lace of dark gray fiber-reinforced ultrahigh performance concrete. The cellular pattern casts intricate shadows into the heart of the museum; a space that the architect likens to a “vertical casbah.” The museum’s dark

gray coloring evokes the hue of dust—“matte and crushed by the light”—and the concrete cladding acts as a barrier of both time and sight. The concrete lattice system extends onto the roof where it functions as an overhang, partially shielding visitors from the sun and weather. Once visitors pass over the bridge from the historic Fort, the experience is meant to transport them to a time before “techno-logical consumerism.” A set of internal stairs and a series of diagonal ramps provide interior circulation routes linking all levels.

Built as part of an effort to decentralize the French national network of regional art museums, and to house nearly five thousand works of art, the FRAC Bretagne is not an overly large building, but the combination of black exterior materials makes it a dramatic one. The facade—a series of brutal rectangular forms stacked one upon the other and seeming to rest upon a foundation of tinted gray glass panels—is a concert of shifting dark tones. The central structure is constructed of reinforced concrete, whose black tone is the result of pigment added just before it was poured onto the steel framework, which gives it an unexpected sheen. Metallic panels, also steel, were chemically treated to attain an unusual gray color; they are utilized

in sections of the building that, in conjunction with the tinted glass panels, create a dark reflecting surface that resembles the winter sky. The lobby level houses a café, auditorium, and seating area. Upper- level galleries are accessed via public elevators or a staircase that leads to the roof level. Located in the neighborhood of Beauregard, the museum sits on an overlook that affords views of the nearby Ille and Vilaine rivers.

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Tadeusz LemanskiKraków, Poland 2013

Búðir, Iceland1703, 1848, and 1987

Domo Dom House Búðakirkja Church

Designed for a single resident, a gardener, Domo Dom is an unex-pected response to stringent local building codes. Located at the edge of Wolski Forest, near Kraków Fortress, the surrounding struc-tures are an eclectic mix of styles and periods, including a number of homes dating back centuries, as well as preserved forts and bomb shelters, many of which are partially or entirely black, either from patina or paint. In keeping with the neighborhood aesthetic, the ar-chitect clad this home in titanium zinc plates, a building material used traditionally in the area. In order to accommodate the client’s desire for a garage and stay within restrictions that require gabled roofs, the small residence is comprised of a single volume that

appears to have been bent upward to accommodate the small, gray, sandstone-clad garage. Essentially a single-story building with an attic-loft, the house contains a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and garage, all within the main metal-clad cube that dramatically slopes toward the sky. Its aloft terminus forms the upstairs sleeping area, which is accessed via a staircase that runs along the garage wall.

Standing in the center of the craggy, isolated Búðahraun lava field in the shadow of the Snæfellsnes mountains in Iceland’s isolated west, Búðakirkja Church—one of only three black-painted religious struc-tures in the country—sits alone on a vast volcanic plane. The church was first founded in 1703 when a local merchant named Bent Larusson sponsored its construction. The exterior of the church was treated with black pitch, a millennia-old technique borrowed from maritime builders dating to the time of the Vikings, who used the material to weatherproof the hulls of fishing vessels. It was subsequently left to degenerate in the harsh coastal elements and was rebuilt for the first time in 1848. Parishioner Steinunn Sveinsdottir lead its reconstruction

after Bent Larusson, as legend has it, visited her in a dream. In 1984, the church was moved in one piece from the old graveyard to its cur-rent location nearby; it was finally reconsecrated in 1987. The cladding remains black in keeping with the design of the first church. Among several original objects still left in the building is a church bell that dates to 1672.

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OOPEAA Office for Peripheral ArchitectureKärsämäki, Finland 2004

Ornes, Norway Twelfth century

Kärsämäki Shingle ChurchUrnes Church

Perched on an idyllic river bank upon the original footprint belonging to the first church built in this parish in 1765, Kärsämäki Shingle Church was made almost entirely by hand. The black-shingled facade echoes the simple austerity that characterizes many churches in the area, while its rough texture references the seasonal shedding of bark from the surrounding trees. Each of the fifty thousand shingles utilized for the roof and cladding are made of hand-split, hand-whittled Aspen, every one dipped in hot black tar before installation. The tar, a tradi-tional local building material, does double duty as both a colorant and a sealant, protecting the structure from harsh seasonal shifts. The structure is built on logs felled from trees owned by the parish, which

were transported to the site by horse-drawn carriage and were cut either by hand or at the local sawmill. Both the inner and outer sur-faces of the log frames were shaped by axe and erected on site, while joints were also crafted by hand with chisels in the traditional fashion. Shingle Church acts as a conceptual mirror of the spiritual path, al-lowing parishioners to enter through darkness and gradually make their way toward the naturally lit interior spaces, where high ceilings and strategically placed glazing in the walls and ceiling help to flood the main hall with sunlight.

Urnes Church, situated in the magnificent Sognefjord on Norway’s west coast, is the oldest standing stave church in the world. Though it is actually the fourth church built on the site, the original timber and carvings, still intact today, are more than a thousand years old. Built entirely of wood, the methods used for its first construction during the Middle Ages were among the most advanced utilized anywhere in the world at the time: What had previously been expressed only in stone on the great medieval cathedrals of Europe, here is realized in local timber, hewn entirely by hand. Elaborate carvings depicting ani-mals and nature, very much a product of pre-Christian Nordic/Viking influences, as well as Celtic symbolism and motifs, are intertwined,

literally and figuratively, with traditional symbols of the Christian church. Of note is the intricately carved scene on the northern wall: a four-legged animal of unknown species appears to be fighting a snakelike creature. Some scholars interpret this carving as a repre-sentation of the Norse myth Ragnarok in which the dragon Níðhöggr consumes the roots of the world tree Yggdrasil, thereby ending the world; others interpret it as a depiction of the Christian battle be-tween good and evil. Structures like Urnes are among the only archi-tectural links between pre- Christian and Christian Europe that remain. Urnes is on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list and is still used today for gatherings and weddings.

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Eero SaarinenChicago, IL, USA1959

D’Angelo Law Library at the University of Chicago Law School

Surrounded by the Gothic, ivy-covered buildings that characterize most of the original architecture on the University of Chicago campus, the University of Chicago Law Library, later named the D’Angelo Law Library, is a masterwork of midcentury modern design. Eero Saarinen, who completed the library just a few years before his death, not only served as the architect for this iconic structure, but as the master planner for the whole of the University’s twentieth-century campus expansion, in which masters of midcentury design, including Mies van der Rohe, were hired to create what has become an iconic col-lection of buildings. The six-story library, an undulating concrete and glass pavilion sitting on a solid foundation of Indiana limestone—

the same stone used in the neighboring Gothic buildings—with its pleated black glass and concrete facade, was designed to reflect light shimmering from the surface of the black reflecting pond below. The building, when viewed from a distance, appears as a solid black mass, set ablaze by the reflected light—an exercise in the successful bridging of two seemingly disparate styles combined into a building whose form and function find balance. The library recently competed a reno-vation, saving it from demolition.

pS ArkitekturNacka, Sweden 2014

Villa Blåbär

A home built in symbiosis with its site, Villa Blåbär is clad entirely in black roofing felt. A material that is both economical and efficient, the felt gives the structure a uniform camouflage intended to detract from its presence in favor of the surroundings, and to project a sense of calm reserve. The stark, white interior spaces counterbalance the dark exterior and energize the transition from nature to domicile. The architects were challenged to place all rooms on one level in order to efficiently maximize views and minimize impact on the sloping site. The villa, built on concrete blocks driven into the bedrock, extends lengthwise along the promontory. A wooden deck extends along one side of the house, providing a barrier between the forest and the

house; the structure itself shields communal activity from the street below. The interior is arranged so that rooms transition from public to private. Residents encounter the garage first, then the living room, the kitchen, and later, the bedrooms. Built according to strict energy efficiency constraints, the home is heated geothermally.

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Farshid Moussavi Cleveland, OH, USA 2012

Apollo Architects & Associates Sendai, Japan 2011

Museum of Contemporary Art ClevelandLIFT

At 34,000 square feet (3,159 square meters), MOCA Cleveland is one of the largest noncollecting museums in the world, and as such, benefits from vast spaces afforded by the absence of collection galleries. Situated on a concrete hexagonal base that sits within a triangular site, the four-story prismatic structural form rises 60 feet (18 meters) from the street, culminating in its unique square upper-most floor where the main exhibition galleries are located. Its outer surface, clad almost entirely in mirror-finish black steel, is meant to reflect, both literally and figuratively, its surrounding urban landscape. The metal panels have been installed along a diagonal grid in keeping with the shape and lines of the load-bearing structure underneath.

Of its six facets, five are metal, while the sixth is constructed of trans-parent glass, through which visitors arrive into a soaring entrance atrium. This glass curtain faces a public plaza, and serves to foster a visual connection between the neighborhood and the museum. Visitors take a grand staircase—a central feature—to the upper floors where the ceiling of the top level exhibition space is painted bright blue.

At once soaring and rooted, with its black cantilevered volume that seems to have risen from underground, LIFT energizes the landscape while providing a protected and tranquil environment within. The clients, a family of five, requested a home that would be efficient in its use of space, open, and optimistic. Though the interior spaces are nearly all white, the large, black exterior is meant to delineate the dramatic and monolithic forms that are typical of the surrounding residential buildings. Black surfaces connote a sense of seriousness and modernity, while also demanding privacy. The smooth, dark, an-gular facades running parallel to neighboring homes remain almost entirely unbroken by windows or exterior glazing of any kind; this is

not a home that invites unwanted interaction with the outside world. Living spaces are arranged on two floors, and are centered around an open-air courtyard, which provides light and air circulation to rooms that are otherwise closed to the surrounding environment. To accom-modate the client’s love of movies, an open-plan, soundproof room is located on the ground floor. A second-floor balcony, protected from the street by black timber louvers, allows for unfettered views of the street from the kitchen, while obstructing unwanted views inward from the passersby.

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Johnsen Schmaling ArchitectsMuscoda, WI, USA 2012

Kirkjubøur, Faroe Islands, Denmark Eleventh century

Stacked Cabin Kirkjubøargarður

Just at the far corner of a forested clearing, at the terminus of an abandoned logging trail on a precipitously raked site, sits a compact cabin designed for protected interaction with its bucolic surround-ings. The woodland home is constructed from exposed concrete at its base, and black cedar, anodized metal, and plaster on the upper floor facades. This black material palette causes the cabin to recede into the shadows and foliage, while also strongly delineating its bold form. Its marked vertical orientation is a reconciliation of site and budget. The residence gathers up the typical interior program of a prototypical mountain cabin and volumetrically separates each component and stacks them one atop the other. The resultant structure is placed into

the slope, and finds its practical functions—including a workshop and storage rooms—on the ground floor, while living, dining, and kitchen areas share space above with bedrooms. A tower structure, whose floor-to-ceiling rectangular glass panels alternate with the black cedar cladding, houses an elevated study where views above the treetops surround the space. Yellow curtains can extend from either side of the central communal space, and can be configured so that they provide privacy for the bedrooms, or separate the kitchen when not in use.

Kirkjubøargarður, or “King’s Farm” in Faroese, is thought to be one of the oldest continually inhabited wooden houses in the world. This wooden structure is the central dwelling on King’s Farm, the largest farm in the Faroe Islands, and dates back to the eleventh century, al-though at that time the house consisted only of the roykstova, or smoke room. The home was first used as the principal residence and seminary for the episcopal diocese of the Faroe Islands. It later be-came the principal farmer’s residence. The distinctive black color of the timber exterior is the result of having been treated with a tar mixture. This traditional construction technique, still seen on houses in the region, was likely borrowed from shipbuilders who used it to

waterproof their vessels. The red window frames and turf roof are of Scandinavian influence. Though there is no written record of its source, the timber used to construct King’s Farm is thought to have been Norwegian driftwood that may have been first constructed in Norway, disassembled, and sent to Kirkjubøur where it was recon-structed on site. (There is no natural source of wood on the Faroe Is-lands.) Much of the current house is a museum, though the Patursson family, which has lived continually in the house since 1550, still occu-pies a portion of it today.

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Horibe AssociatesKashiba, Japan 2009

Tham & Videgård ArkitekterKalmar, Sweden 2008

House of Kashiba Kalmar Museum of Art

This corrugated steel residence, located in a suburban neighborhood of Nara, Japan, is inspired by the client’s simple request that the house contain a central, inner courtyard that could be viewed while soaking in the bathtub. The resulting structure, a somber black cube with striking white windows cut into the facade, is meant to project the owner’s desire for interior privacy while simultaneously providing an interior that is expansive and light-filled. Organized around its two-story inner courtyard, the interior windows and cutouts draw attention from the inside to what the architect calls a central “symbol tree”—a living architectural element that provides a lovely focal point and a lasting symbol of growth and natural balance. The courtyard

and windows allow for gentle airflow during the warm months. A win-dowlike open aperture in the exterior-facing wall draws in light and allows for views from the interior across the courtyard and into the neighborhood. When darkness falls, the home nearly disappears, leaving only a series of ethereal floating squares of light formed by the windows.

Located in a central public park, the Kalmar Museum of Art is com-posed of four stories of exhibition space that culminate in a top-floor gallery. There, a dramatic, wavelike shed with headlight shafts form a dramatic and versatile light-filled hall. The rectangular building is clad in black-stained plywood panels of varying dimensions that have been installed in vertical strips, akin to large shingles. The black col-ored panels reference traditional, shingle-clad Swedish vernacular architecture, creating a temporality to the building design and giving it context in Kalmar’s Renaissance-era landscape. Designed around the concept of “a platform for art,” each of the four floors is meant to act as an open stage activated by the artworks placed there. As a

result, flexibility and light are pivotal. An open, angular staircase runs from the ground to the upper floors and features a dramatic skylight that filters sunlight through the exposed in situ cast concrete-lined interior spaces. Walls of windows facing the park create a dynamic interaction between the landscape and the gallery spaces.

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Easy Domes Limited Kvivik, Faroe Islands, Denmark 2000

Dualchas Architects Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK 2015

Kvivik Igloo Colbost

This pair of contemporary geodesic domes, located in the village of Kvivik on the island of Streymoy in the Faroe Islands, was construct-ed as short-term rental accommodations for tourists. At 300 square feet (25 square meters) each, the small, self-contained units feature turf roofs and off-the-grid heating, plumbing, and electrical sys-tems. The black painted wood exteriors aid in heat absorption during the cold winters; wood stoves take care of the rest. Though these structures are, architecturally, a marked departure from other resi-dences in the area, homes with black exterior treatments are a fairly common site in the Faroe Islands, where a millennia-old tradition of coating structures in a black tar mixture exists to this day. These

basic polyhedron shaped domes have twenty-one pine and plywood hexagons that are mounted to a wooden frame. Aluminum flashing prevents leakage. Large heptagon-shaped windows facing west to-ward the sea below supply most of the illumination during the day and allow for airflow when opened to the elements. The twin domes are efficiently laid out, with a stove and miniature kitchen, a small living room, some simple storage, and a loft above for sleeping—which is accessible only by ladder.

The four structures that comprise this contemporary family resi-dence are deeply informed and inspired by the traditional dark farm buildings located on a nearby croft that dot the Isle of Skye’s incom-parable landscape. In order to avoid constructing one large residence that would be out of context on this sparsely populated island, the architects disassembled the home into four separate structures: two large and two small. The tallest building contains the bedrooms on two floors, while the single-story structure next to it houses living and dining rooms. The two smallest volumes are dedicated to storage and heating machinery. All four structures are clad in horizontally placed Siberian larch that has been stained black. Roofs are constructed of

coated aluminum panels, which are also black. Extraneous exterior elements, including eaves, rain gutters, and projecting window case-ments, have been eliminated in keeping with the simple shedlike form. The buildings are arranged around an inner central courtyard that contains an outdoor shower. From a distance, the structures dis-appear against the mountainside and the sky.

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Mork-Ulnes ArchitectsSummit, CA, USA2016

Architecture Open Form Montreal, QC, Canada 2013

Troll HusDonner LeJeune Residence

Bringing an element of Scandinavian darkness to the mountains of Northern California, Troll HusDonner is a contemporary interpretation of the traditional Norwegian mountain hut, updated to withstand the heavy snowfalls and extreme weather conditions of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The clients, a retired couple who have been skiing in the area since the 1940s, sought a vacation home large enough to com-fortably accommodate their extended clan. Their home needed to feel contemporary, secluded, and in communion with their beloved high alpine forests. The exterior timber cladding, which has been coated in black tar, was inspired by the traditional Norwegian building technique that offers protection from the elements and

serves to camouflage the home against the dark forest. The large 3,300-square-foot (306-square-meter) living space is generous, and yet utilizes only a small footprint of land, as the entirety of the resi-dence sits perched on a pylon-supported concrete plinth high above the snow. The covered outdoor area underneath the house is used for recreational preparation and equipment storage, while the en-trance is located up one of two staircases—one indoor and the other outdoor—to the second level.

Built in 1890, the LeJeune Residence, located in Montreal’s Plateau Mont Royal neighborhood, was once housing for the groomsmen who cared for the horses and carriages belonging to the wealthy residents of nearby Saint Joseph Boulevard. In the interim century, the home was clad in protective metal siding, and ultimately fell into disrepair. The clients, a couple who had previously restored historical homes, bought the duplex with the intention of modernizing the structure and transforming it into a single-family home. It was only after stripping away the facade that the architects discovered the still intact, but badly deteriorated, original wood cladding underneath. A decision was made to restore the exterior and, in keeping with the

historical district’s preservation restraints, paint it black. As a result, the facade takes on a distinctly modern aesthetic, a “starting point, and a new beginning for both the building and its owners," according to the architects. The architectural details are less obvious in daylight, but in darkness, exterior and interior lighting reveal subtle ornamen-tation and historical details.

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Constructed on a steeply raked Scottish Highlands hillside, on land formerly used as rough grazing pastures for local livestock, House at Camusdarach Sands was built for a young, local couple. They wanted a home whose orientation would maximize views of the sun as it rises over the mountains to the east and sets behind the islands to the west. The home has a distinctive double-gabled form—as if a tradi-tional gabled farmhouse had been splayed upward on a hillside—that features large banks of windows at either end to enhance views. The roof dips toward the foundation forming a saddle between the gables; the middle volume mitigates the structural exposure to the harsh elements. The upper portion of the home is clad in vertical timber planks, which have been stained black in reference to the abundant peat and gorse growing nearby, as well as the ever-present stormy skies. Interiors are arranged across three levels, gradually becoming lighter and larger; the third level features light birch plywood and soaring bright spaces, some at double height.

Raw ArchitectureStormness, Scotland, UK2013

House at Camusdarach Sands

Positioned at the highest point of a dramatically inclined slope in Karuizawa, Japan, Ring House is a towering assemblage of alternat-ing translucent and opaque black bands. Together, these black-and-white bands create a seemingly ephemeral structure that appears to emerge from the landscape as if part of the forest itself. Built on a challenging site, its enclosed, forested locale inspired the architects to create a holiday home that would express an extreme verticality in deference to the surrounding trees. The facade is constructed of alternating sections of glazing and wood, the latter made of dark stained cedar panels. From a distance the home appears to be part of the forest, its alternating black-and-white scheme an echo of the bark and branches surrounding it. When night falls, and the forest recedes into darkness, Ring House glows from within; its formerly transitory form illuminates the landscape in stacked ribbons of white light. Constructed on a concrete plinth in the hillside, the home is accessed via footbridge to the first floor. An internal staircase circu-lates through the entirety of the home and on to the roof where an observation deck rests among the treetops.

TNANagano, Japan 2006

Ring House

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Book information:

This fascinating and informative book on the aesthetics of black architecture provides readers with a fresh new way to appreciate architecture

Features vernacular and historic buildings, including rural barns, Georgian townhouses, and Icelandic chapels

Features buildings by some of the best architects of the twentieth century—such as Mies van der Rohe, Craig Ellwood, Philip Johnson, and Eero Saarinen—as well as some of the most celebrated contemporary architects—including Norman Foster, Peter Zumthor, John Pawson, Peter Marino, Seven Holl, and Jean Nouvel

Each project is beautifully illustrated with stunning photography and accompanied by an engaging and informative text that explores the role of black in the design of the building

Appeals to professionals as well as everyday fans of quality architecture

Book Specifications

Binding: HardbackFormat: 290 x 250 mm (11 3⁄8 x 9 7⁄8 inches)Extent: 224 ppNumber of images: 180 col.Word Count: 39,000

ISBN: 978 0 7148 7472 2

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© 2017 Phaidon Press Limited

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