Writings

The test wing for the hospital in Herlev, built on the site of the County Hospital in Gentofte, constitutes a polychrome colour environment, which also includes curtains and pictures in the patient rooms. Various circumstances surrounding the task dictated that it became intense and strong. He set a requirement for himself that the colours should be at full intensity, the most striking ones he could possibly find. That was the first condition. The second condition he set was that it had to be approved, and in order to gain approval, it had to, in addition to being strong and intense, also be reasonable in some way. 

He completed the task, stepped away from it, and took on another assignment in the hospital’s basement. There, he used the same colour palette, as it was still the same building, and the rooms had, to some extent, the same proportions, the same materials, and the same people moving through them. However, he found that in the basement, he made various mistakes – it turned out worse than what he had created in the main ward. 

Later, when he could see that there were errors, that something wasn’t working, he began asking himself what the difference was. He then realized that in the main ward, the colours had been placed in very specific systems, which he had been unaware of while carrying out the work and which had likely only emerged due to the pressured situation where he had been forced to push himself to the limit, whereas he had relaxed more when working in the basement.

In the systems in which he unconsciously placed the colours, he claims to have discovered a law-like principle: that the colours are oriented according to the cardinal directions. One can refer to Steen Ejler Rasmussen’s observation that warm colours should face south and cool colours should face north. He can confirm this, but he believes he has taken it a step further. It is not enough to consider only north and south – there is also an east/west factor. His claim goes so far as to say that he is fully convinced that even rooms used only at night and therefore seen only in artificial light should be oriented according to the cardinal directions.

He believes it is a natural law. He thinks that humans always have an instinctive need to orient themselves. Humans, consciously or unconsciously – at least the sensitive ones – have an awareness of where south and north are, where the sun is and where it is not; they can find south and north unconsciously, even at night and in unfamiliar places. He believes that, without knowing it, people have a need for rooms facing north to be in northern colours in order to be in harmony with themselves and not to be frustrating or have a negative influence on people.

If you have a room somewhere, regardless of its orientation, you could paint it red one day, green the next, blue the third day, and so on. You would find that one of these colours would be the right one. You would simply be able to feel it.

There are three factors that determine which colour is best. The first is the room’s dimensions—height, width, depth, possibly also window openings, doors, and similar elements. The second is its orientation relative to the cardinal directions. The third is its function. However, one could imagine conducting a test series where the room’s function was left undetermined. It is only when the colour aligns with all three factors that the room reaches its maximum potential.