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White
Rosinová, Liana
The identity of modern architecture seems inseparable from the whiteness of its surfaces. But why white? Why do we surround ourselves with white walls? The doctoral thesis deals with the phenomenon of white as a framework for portraying the social and cultural development of whiteness throughout history. It outlines a new critical interpretation of the privileging of the colour white in architecture, which distorts the image of white as the peak of purity, morality, evolution, sublime, silence, etc. The main body of the text is devoted to the ideas and performances of selected historical facts and figures like asceticism of J. J. Winckelmann, Le Corbusier´s Law of Ripolin, elimination of ornament of A. Loos, white supremacy of A. Ozenfant, or B. Mussolini´s bleached Rome that address the issue of white. The task continues on the academic research which examines the social construction of the „white race“ as possessing a privileged social status in reference to race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and to a fact, that modern architecture was never simply white. Overleaf, white is somewhere between. It is connected to birth and death at the same time. White looks like the deadlock after erasing of all degenerated, and sometimes as a stimulus for imagination and more sensitive perception. In such a dichotomy of white we have created a presumption of looking at the white from assertoric or aletheic gaze. It means the narrow, intolerant, and dogmatic attitude on the one hand, and contextual, incorporated, and democratic on the other hand. The text also takes some viewpoints on the topic of whiteness to gauge the current understanding of white. The aim is to explore cultural-historical-social preference of white, and depending on the results of research to formulate the meaning of white.
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