Exceptional Homes & Exceptional Colours

EXQUISITE COLOURS FOR ELEGANT PROPERTIES

For over a decade, RALF SCHMITZ has been collaborating with SEBASTIAN TREESE ARCHITECTS, resulting in numerous buildings in Germany’s metropolitan areas that reflect their shared passion for architectural culture, classic timeless aesthetics, and a profound commitment to quality and sustainability. This approach has proven successful, as evidenced by Treese’s receipt of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize in 2021, making him the first German architect to be honoured for outstanding contributions to traditional architecture.

A few years ago, Sebastian Treese and Anna von Ketteler ^[1] met by chance (naturally, at a construction site). The architect was impressed by what the art historian was creating with her young paint company. It was a natural progression to bring ANNA VON MANGOLDT—Anna’s maiden name—into collaboration with RALF SCHMITZ. Following extensive discussions with Dr Axel Martin Schmitz, Anna von Ketteler developed four shades that will now feature in all new RALF SCHMITZ projects. The colour quartet radiates a subtle, calm elegance, making it incredibly versatile and easy to combine. Each shade has been named after family members from various generations of this traditional company.

Since 2010, these chalk paints—along with perfectly matching lacquers—have been produced in all sizes at the ANNA VON MANGOLDT workshop in Warburg, East Westphalia. Each shade is meticulously hand-mixed and tested to ensure the highest quality standards, in line with the motto of RALF SCHMITZ’s founder, Peter Schmitz: “Only value endures!”

RALF SCHMITZ & COLOURS

Colour can have a refreshing, relaxing, cosy, or even sophisticated and dynamic effect. It ties spaces together and embraces everything within them. “At RALF SCHMITZ, we start thinking about colour schemes at a very early stage. This applies not only to the façade of a new project, which should blend harmoniously into its surroundings, but also to the design of shared areas like foyers, staircases, and of course, the interiors of the apartments,” says Dr Axel Martin Schmitz. “Using only off-white causes contours to fade too much. If you really want to highlight something, such as the architecture of a floor plan or a room, it should be accentuated with colours. Colours add even more soul to our timelessly beautiful projects.”

The approach involves a blend of subtly elegant tones that never appear cold—now further refined with the four colours developed in collaboration with ANNA VON MANGOLDT.

Colour Theory and Philosophy

But what exactly is colour?

Philosophical considerations about the nature of colour can be traced back to Anaxagoras (5th century BC), who in his Sophistic discourse favoured colour realism: “Snow is frozen water. But water is dark in colour. Therefore, snow is dark in colour.” Anaxagoras argued that our perception diverges from reality “…due to the weakness of the senses.” A century later, Democritus countered: “By convention, sweet; by convention, bitter; by convention, hot; by convention, cold; by convention, colour. But in reality: atoms and void.” In direct contradiction to Anaxagoras, the philosopher and sceptic Sextus Empiricus (circa 160 AD) pointed out that different animals perceive colours differently due to variations in their eyes, concluding that colour is an attribute of the subject, not the object itself.

Also influential was Descartes’ dictum that drawing is the essential aspect of a painting – not colour. However, in the modern era, this dogma of the primacy of form gradually softened. Denis Diderot (1713–1784), a typical sensualist, claimed that it is colour that brings life to a painting, and painters like Jan Vermeer began to grant colour its own autonomy. 

Colour Theory and Science

The world, as we see it, is populated by colourful objects. We typically perceive it as a rich tapestry of colours or coloured forms – fields, mountains, oceans, skies, hairstyles, clothing, fruits, plants, animals, buildings, and so on. Colours are significant not only in identifying objects, but also in locating them in space and recognising them. A large part of our perception of physical objects involves identifying them based on their appearance, and colours are typically essential for how an object appears, making any description of visual perception necessarily a description of colours as well. Given that visual perception is one of the most crucial forms of perception, and thus of acquiring knowledge about the physical world and our environment – including our own bodies- a theory of colour is doubly important.

One of the major problems concerning colour is reconciling what we seem to know about colours with what science tells us about physical bodies and their properties. This problem has led many leading physicists who have contemplated colours to argue that physical objects do not possess the colours we commonly and naturally attribute to them. Oceans and skies are not blue, as we naively believe, and apples are neither red (nor green). Colours of this sort are thought to have no place in the physical depiction of the world. To illustrate this, we turn to the famous remark by the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume in 1738: “Sounds, colours, heat, and cold are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind.”

Physicists who subscribed to this doctrine include luminaries such as Galileo, Boyle, Descartes, Newton, Thomas Young, Maxwell, and Hermann von Helmholtz. The colours we see are the result of light being absorbed, reflected, and transmitted by an object. Therefore, the quality and type of lighting have a significant impact: a dimly lit object reflects a darker shade, while well-lit objects reflect a richer colour. Similarly, a yellowish light source highlights warmer hues like reds and oranges, while a bluish light source brings out cooler tones like blues and greens. People generally believe that objects appear coloured because they are coloured, just as we experience them: the sky appears blue because it is blue, grass appears green because it is green, and blood appears red because it is red. As surprising as it may seem, these beliefs are fundamentally incorrect. Neither objects nor light are actually “coloured” in the way we perceive them. Rather, colour is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we observe objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights. The colours we see depend on the physical properties of objects and lights that cause us to see them as coloured, but these physical properties differ in significant ways from the colours we perceive. This view, of course, lacks romanticism, which is why we now turn to the more emotional side of colour theory.

Colours and Emotions: Grey Eminence

Colours are connected with emotions, becoming proverbs and symbols: Lovers give red roses, hope is green, purple is said to be the final attempt—and Goethe’s Mephistopheles famously tells his student, “Grey, dear friend, is all theory.”

Let’s try to specifically redeem the colour grey. In the physical sense, grey may not be considered a true colour; in the art historical sense, however, it is undoubtedly one of the most significant shades: the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck perfected the use of oil paints (as opposed to the previously used tempera) around 600 years ago, beginning with grey paintings known as grisaille.

For Goethe, grey was not only the sum of all colours but also their origin.

“Colour is for the eye, but it is not merely for the eye.” Goethe

Unlike Isaac Newton, Goethe did not believe that the spectrum resulted from the division of white light. Instead, his theory of colours was based on the visual opposites of light and dark. For Goethe, brightness and darkness were crucial in determining which colour the eye perceives.

Colours as makeup for walls—or for details in a room. “Colourful is my favourite colour,” the architect and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius once said. At RALF SCHMITZ, we wouldn’t quite agree with that! We lean more towards the great reform architect Heinrich Tessenow (who taught Hieronymus, head of the third RS generation). Tessenow (1876–1950) had a particularly sharp and critical view of the relationship between community spirit and the local environment in terms of material and colour choice. He famously described brightly painted houses amid rows of muted homes as “the most visible forerunners of a great societal disintegration.” ^[2]

The colour palette of an urban environment is not just the result of material developments but can also reflect societal values and agreements. Those urban ensembles that adhere to overarching classical design principles, both in form and colour, tend to be held in higher esteem.

Colours and Interior Details

Now, back to interiors: most people think about painting an entire wall, but smaller elements can also be highlighted, such as skirting boards, radiators, or door panels, as the great Viennese modernist Adolf Loos did. Don’t hesitate to play with contrasts—for example, mustard yellow, aubergine, or orange against cream and grey.

There’s also a persistent myth that dark colours make a room feel gloomy and sad. In reality, the opposite is true. A deep blue, for example, makes white and wood—such as doors, windows, or sideboards—appear warmer. This contrast creates harmony. Our favourite example of this effect is the small, sophisticated study in rich reddish-brown in the RALF SCHMITZ showroom on Emser Straße.

A smart grey tone, much like a soft cream, a delicate green, or a pale blue, pairs beautifully with historic architectural details and woodwork. It’s also light and bright enough to be used in new builds with large windows and high ceilings. The colour has just enough saturation to avoid feeling too stark, giving any room a fresh, inviting feel. It shouldn’t be too beige or too grey—then it becomes incredibly versatile.

And after a long winter, we can appreciate spring, summer, and their colours all the more. Without the grey season, we wouldn’t value the vibrancy of those months as much. So, grey is truly a particularly important colour!