This Architecture Has a Passion for Color

Emmanuelle Moureaux’s approach to architecture and the ways in which space can be divided is very much informed by color. “I want to give emotion through colors,” writes the French architect on her website, “whether it is architecture or an art piece.”

Through her work, she hopes people can see, touch, and feel colors, using their senses. “The overflowing effects of colors in space will show that colors can give more than a space, but a space with additional layers of human emotion,” she explains.

Moureaux’s use of color is unique, treating colors as three-dimensional elements, much like layers, that create and divide spaces, rather than finishing touches applied on surfaces later on.

Her unique approach was inspired by a week-long trip she made to Tokyo as an architectural student, which according to her gave her “the passion for colors.” “It was the flow of staggering colors pervading the street that built a complex depth and density, creating three-dimensional layers in the city of Tokyo,” she writes. “I felt a lot of emotions seeing all these colors, and in that very moment, I decided to move to this city.”

Now based in Tokyo, Moureaux’s architectural designs are based on the layers and colors of Tokyo that provide a complex depth and density, as well as the Japanese traditional spatial elements like sliding screens. She calls this approach “shikiri,” a word that literally means “to divide space using colors.”