Everything in the world must be colourful

An article written by Ponti in 1952 for the Pirelli magazine on the use of color in interior design, becomes an ode to bright colours.

In 1952, a reader of Domus wrote to the then editor-in-chief Gio Ponti, commenting: “For years I have dreamt of seeing grey, grey-black and grey-grey clothes vanish from our lives […] and I am delighted whenever I see a girl wearing a colourful outfit. […] Colour is festivity and life, while grey to me seems above all like a useless, cold conviction.” Other letters like this one can be found among the old correspondence folders in Domus’s archive. They were received from architects and students who, after reading “Everything in the World Must Be Colourful” – an article penned by Gio Ponti in 1952 for Pirelli magazine – enthusiastically wrote to the editor-in-chief about his ideas, commending his brilliant spirit in promoting innovation and modernity. 

Grateful for the invitation from his friends at the Linoleum company and Pirelli to speak about colour in the house, Ponti wrote: “Everything in the world must be colourful […] Everyone who mostly ‘wears grey’ – the ‘darker’ the more distinguished (the people whom I detest) – is always speaking of ‘tradition’. Yet these poor souls are unaware that tradition has always been the exception (or rather the masterpiece that proves the rule). Tradition has always been health, strength, life and therefore colour, and it has never worn grey trousers, grey jackets or grey overcoats, which are all things that make grey faces, grey spirits and grey lives. True tradition, the kind I adore, the kind safeguarded by innovators, has always been colourful and sanguine.” 

According to Ponti, when colouring a house’s interior one must start from the floors. And you had to choose a single, beautiful, strong colour for the whole house, or compose the colours. He explained: “For the first way – which has a beautiful harmonising effect that immediately characterises the house and will impress it in everyone’s memory – do not resort to plain-coloured rubber or linoleum. […] Choose multicoloured and ‘fantastic’ linoleum and rubber – they are also more practical – and cast, for example, a light-blue floor entirely of the same colour throughout the house. Cast a blue lake, with white walls and ceilings, and with Venetian blinds, fabric and yellow wood. Blue and yellow, sky-blue and brown are beautiful ranges. And some hints of cherry red. And paintings by Guidi and Campigli. Cast a red floor throughout the house, a lake of fire, with white walls and ceilings, and curtains coloured red, yellow, or red and yellow, which is another beautiful range. But also (emerald) green tones. And paintings by Sassu and Fiume, and de Chirico’s mannequins (the only ones of value by de Chirico).

Cast a yellow floor throughout the house, a golden ground, with white walls and ceilings, and yellow and brown curtains in a radiant range. And dark-green and dark-blue tones. […] Never have orange floors. Orange is a colour for people who are no good with colours. […] With these bright floors, the furniture will be white or in light-coloured wood (ash and maple), and never a coloured ceiling. Dark ceilings – dark blue, ultramarine or coffee – or light ceilings – golden yellow, bright green and red – require white or light-grey floors. This is the overturned intonation. Never have a coloured floor and a coloured ceiling: the rooms will be squashed by the two colours above and below. […]” 

For the architect, these were not practical suggestions for a self-made design. True artists could manage on their own. But for all the others, he would see to making “beautiful things”. 

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