LETTER 03 · DESIGN & GREECE

Why Greek white is never just white

An industrial designer's eye on the colours Greece creates without trying.

When people think about Greece, they think of white.

White houses.

White walls.

White churches against a blue sky.

But Greek white is never really just white.

Perhaps I notice this because I am a designer.

Or perhaps because I grew up with it.

A wall in Greece changes colour all day.

Early in the morning it can be cool and almost grey.

By midday the sun removes nearly everything from it.

Then, towards evening, the same white becomes cream, yellow, sometimes almost pink.

Nothing has been repainted.

The light has done all the work.

As a designer, I have spent much of my life looking at colour, materials, objects and spaces.

It means I have an occupational problem.

I notice things.

I also notice what I would change.

I can walk into somewhere beautiful and still see the thing I would move, correct or redesign.

You don't switch that part of your brain off very easily.

But Greece often reminds me that perfection and beauty are not the same thing.

A Greek street can contain things that shouldn't work together.

An old white wall.

A blue shutter that has faded differently on each side.

A plastic chair.

A handwritten sign.

Electrical cables nobody attempted to hide.

A pot of basil.

A gardenia on a balcony.

A cat sitting exactly where it wants to sit.

On a design board, perhaps I would remove half of it.

In Greece, somehow, I don't want to.

The sun connects everything.

That may be the greatest design lesson Greece has given me.

Everybody looks more beautiful in Greece.

Food looks better.

Skin looks better.

Old buildings look better.

Even things that aren't particularly beautiful can become beautiful for ten minutes when the light falls on them properly.

I notice something similar with water.

Water heated by the Greek sun has a particular feeling to me.

A kind of energy.

I have noticed it in the Sahara too, so perhaps Greece cannot claim this one entirely.

But there is something about having a shower with water that has spent the day under that enormous sun.

You feel the day inside it.

Good design often tries very hard to control things.

The colour.

The material.

The proportion.

The light.

Greece reminds me that sometimes the most beautiful result happens when you stop controlling everything.

Let the wall age.

Let the blue fade.

Let the plant grow where it wants.

Let the afternoon change the colour.

And please leave the cat alone.

It was there first.

— From London, with Greece in mind.