Facades in Southern Italy

Facades are the outside walls of a house. The main facade is the face of a house. It is its surface - but not superficial. Facades can be a cultural heritage, they can tell us about the period of a house's origin. Its colors and decor are often matching regional habits. A facade can create an identity for a house. And "the ability of the facade to create an identity for the patron lies in the architect's use of certain signs, symbols and materials..." (Burroughs)

I start bold with a photo of Roman palazzi facades and a short thought about the importance of a house's exterior.

Here some more facades:

White columns from the ground to the roof... ah, and a pinkish color I would have liked (sigh), seen at Piazza Navona in Rome.

Another version of coloring a facade: Keep the natural stone of the first (ground) floor or paint it white. Then use only color for the floors above. This is at the Piazza di Trevi in Rome.

Now back to Pizzo: a yellow tone with lots of white columns and lines - but still well balanced.

A house with a colour choice similar to ours. Yellow basic tone, white columns and frames, brown window frames. Again white end-to-end columns.

I think it is obvious what I want to sell... white end-to-end columns. Although we decided about the colours (eggshell white and "731", a kind of peach) for our outside walls, we now need to decide about HOW to color the main facade.

We have been discussing it with the architect briefly before our departure. He thought that it might be too much white for the ground floor. I do not think so if we paint the frames of the two side entrances in "731".

To visualize the subject I painted the facades again (only on paper) with my Chinese brushes and water colors.

This is the architects vision (if I understood right). He rather would use white only to frame the two side entrances and then use white again for the colums and frames on the level above.

In both versions the lowest grey band means that we will stick a stone plate on the wall. Apparently there has been one before. I found that out today... when I asked my husband on the phone what he thinks about my proposals that I emailed to him, the architect and Angelo. I asked if we would leave it grey or colour it in "731", and he told me about a marble stone. Actually it is THE marble (or graphite?) that I was complaining about, the one that looks like a grave stone... He said that it will be treated to have a rough surface. BTW all the window sills and door sills that look to sleek get the same workover to make it look rougher. Then, in maybe 50 years, it will look like the stone that frames the main entrance.

The facade of the seaside seems clear. Same pattern as before.

So I am here to get comments about my proposal, especially from the Italians mentioned above.