“If we didn’t know you were architects, we would have thought artists lived here,” we said about Peter Stamberg and Paul Aferiat’s lower Fifth Avenue loft. They were pleased. Known for their painterly use of color, it was fascinating to listen to their thoughts on this surprisingly complex subject of color in the lives of human beings.
“The idea of choosing a color is people’s fear of making a choice,” says Peter. If you’re inspired by the photographs of their loft, check out their thought-provoking website (www. stambergaferiat.com) and especially their treatment of the Saguaro hotels in Palm Springs and Scottsdale, Arizona where they transformed dingy desert-colored buildings into brilliance.
We’re interested in your name – “Aferiat” – where does it come from?
Paul: My father was Algerian—did you see the Yves St. Laurent film? It is amazing, amazing! And he was born in Oran, which was where my father was born. My father became the president of Porthault in the US and I only visited Algeria when I was young.
You have a good French accent—did you grow up speaking French?
Paul: Well my mother was child of the Holocaust. She was 13 years old when they sent her by herself to America and she lost her parents there—she was from Vienna. So language was not something that was actually cultivated in our household. We weren’t told anything about it all.
And you, Peter—your mother was a guidance counselor at a high school!
Peter: And I went to the same high school! She wasn’t my counselor—I was switched over to another group. People said it must have been horrible but she was wonderful.
Perhaps it was kind of useful to have a guidance counselor/mother …
Peter: It was except when I was busted near the end of senior year cutting gym the entire year.
Is that the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done? It’s not that naughty!
Peter: No, no …. no-no-no-no! I once went to jail [protesting] as a student at Columbia in 1963, but I was only in jail overnight.
Paul: You know last night we went to see “Hard Day’s Night” at Film Forum … I mean, boy speaking of connecting with our youth—you get a sense of the world and how clean cut they were, even though [The Beatles] were considered cutting edge. But they wore suits and ties and their music was sweet … it was just innocent! And then Vietnam … and then the collusion of Columbia with the war machine and then came Kent State of course … and the world changed. The innocence was lost.
Let’s talk about how New York is changing now—as architects perhaps you have a hand in it.
Paul: At Film Forum they now show a movie about how it started and how they eventually found a place for it on Houston Street where no one cared – and to think they’re now building condo after condo after condo there.
Peter: We do believe in a city’s evolution but we also believe in sort of areas that are somewhat sacred.
Paul: There was once a contribution by Mayor Koch—bless him for many things— directing money and using brilliant minds to further the idea of public housing and that doesn’t exist anymore.
I have to say you win the prize for the best website we’ve seen. Who came up with all the questions like: “When have you ever dreamed in black and white?” or “Who knew warm was a color?”
Paul: We have a very, very dear friend, Reed Krolloff, who collaborated with us.
Peter: He helped us recognize as architects that we’re not always our own best communicators.
Paul: The work can be gorgeous but architects can be such terrible speakers.
Well you two are very good speakers. We must talk about all your color and use of color, for which you are so well known.
Peter: We did this gallery talk as part of our show (“Art on Color” Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl gallery) and we started out by saying there’s claustrophobia, fear of small spaces, there’s arachnophobia, fear of spiders, there’s homophobia, fear of us and there’s chromophobia … the greater fear of us. Color almost everyone loves, they may not admit it, but they love it … and yet they’re afraid of it. When you’re at a party and everyone is wearing black, then someone walks in wearing a red dress, everyone smiles. [The “Art on Color” show was designed to reveal how perception of works of art is enhanced or altered by being displayed against colored backgrounds]
We’re programmed to like color, aren’t we? It helps us survive.
Peter: Historically color was part of ancient culture, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Egyptians—everything was highly colored. Then the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages come along and people forgot. When the temples and the statues were rediscovered in the Renaissance, the paint was gone and those things, unpainted, became the Classical ideal. Color was perceived to be primitive. Sixteenth century ships were sailing around and going to places like Africa and that was where the color was.
Paul: Then there is the perception that black and white is considered masculine and logical whereas color is considered feminine. There’s a definite misogyny there.
Peter: The influence of photography also altered the way we think about color. Remember that photography was created in the late 19th century and photography was black, white and grey. Suddenly, regardless of what was created, its translation to the world and the way it was disseminated into high culture meant that there was now this very limited palette. The world’s intellectuals saw the world as black, white and grey even though someone like Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion was colored with a brilliant green wall and red velvet drapes—none of that translated to the world.
We love The Saguaro hotel you did in Arizona. When you went to the planning authorities and said that you were going to paint it in all those brilliant colors, what was the response? Did they buy your idea that the colors were inspired by the colors of the wildflowers found in the desert?
Paul: It’s a great story. In the beginning, we didn’t tell them about the wildflowers. Anyway, during the presentation we get to the color scheme and the response was: “You’re kidding of course.” The planning officer said that it was required that the buildings in Scottsdale have to be painted in desert colors, which is why Scottsdale is so relentlessly beige. So we then said, “Oh, let’s show you the last presentation board.” We picked a dozen flowers that were indigenous to the desert … she took a deep breath and she said, I’m going to get [around this with a loophole] but you have to promise me that it will be done within 48 hours. You will have to have a SWAT team. And we did. And people were at first were shocked and said they hated it. But then suddenly everyone just loved it.
So what do you do at the end of the day then? Do you have a brightly colored drink?
Paul: [laughs] Peter does drink a colored drink!
What drink is that then?
Peter: It’s called a “Madras.” You mix vodka, cranberry and orange.
Paul: My favorite is Lillet, which is actually golden.
