Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Emotional Architecture: Close the outside with thick walls, opening only to courtyard and water
- Type
- Set in Emotional Architecture's manner (Sink signage into the wall color and let shadow make it readable), and let Tropical Modernism's lettering (Place signs in the shade of the eaves so glare never blanks them) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Emotional Architecture's material (Rough plaster in one vivid color, with the hour's light calculated in); bring in exactly one thing from Tropical Modernism (Concrete louvers, perforated terracotta blocks, timber shutters that breathe).
- Colour
- Build on #d9ccb3, #f46bb9, #476fb5 and admit one accent from #e2dfcc, #779173, #48514a.
Where they fight
- Emotional Architecture and Tropical Modernism both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Emotional Architecture Painting walls in vivid color without designing openings and shadow makes the color glare evenly, giving loudness instead of the intended stillness.
- Tropical Modernism Louvers and canopies added as shapes, with no calculation of orientation and sun angles, stop neither sun nor rain. Look past a tropical look to colonial rule, nation building after independence and local architects.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Emotional Architecture (style, 1953-) and their accent from Tropical Modernism (style, 1940s–1970s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Emotional Architecture exists for: giving a white modern building strong feeling through local color and light, or making stillness in a hot climate house with courtyards and water. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Emotional Architecture - A single large wall left without windows - Surfaces painted through in one flat color - Planes of shadow cast by direct sun - Mass read as sculpture rather than as building Composition: Close the outside with thick walls, opening only to courtyard and water. Type and lettering: Sink signage into the wall color and let shadow make it readable. ## Accent comes from Tropical Modernism, used sparingly - Brise-soleil - Deep eaves - Cross-ventilation - Permeable screens Let one material quality come from it: Concrete louvers, perforated terracotta blocks, timber shutters that breathe. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #d9ccb3, carry the structure in #f46bb9 and #476fb5, and let a single accent come from #779173. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: exhilaration, intimacy, calm, trust, futurity. ## Where they fight - Emotional Architecture and Tropical Modernism both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Emotional Architecture: Painting walls in vivid color without designing openings and shadow makes the color glare evenly, giving loudness instead of the intended stillness. - Tropical Modernism: Louvers and canopies added as shapes, with no calculation of orientation and sun angles, stop neither sun nor rain. Look past a tropical look to colonial rule, nation building after independence and local architects. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Emotional Architecture 1953- / Style / Modern Architecture
Building that raises unbroken walls as sculptural mass and works on feeling through color, direct sun and stillness alone. Goeritz gave it the name in the 1953 manifesto he wrote for El Eco, against the functionalism of his day.
- Tropical Modernism 1940s–1970s / Style / Modern Architecture
Adapts modern architecture to hot, humid climates through canopies, louvers, ventilation and sun control.
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