Alsop’s Colorium forms one element of a larger ongoing program for the regeneration of Dusseldorf’s waterfront. The completed ‘Media Harbor’ project will include works by Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, David Chipperfield and Fumihiko Maki. The building was designed as an office block, with its special shape as a process of aesthetic, economic and social rebirth. The area in which it has been built is the old river port of Dusseldorf, which has several examples of industrial archaeology, with brick buildings and anonymous steel facades.

Designed for a private client, the Colorium occupies a long, narrow peninsula site whose thin side faces on to the water. Alsop’s original scheme for this challenging footprint was for a taller structure which mixed conventional office space with live/work lofts, a penthouse and restaurant. Planning restrictions, however, reduced the height of building to 62 m which the final design divides into 17 floors of office space. In place of the radical forms for which he is known, Alsop has elected to radicalize the skin of his design, with sensuous facade treatment transforming the tower’s standard orthogonal structure.

In a context of this type the tower designed by Alsop has become a symbol of the new, not only because of its colors, but also due to its special shape. To break down the monotony of standardized office building floors piled on top of each other, the smooth e-glass walls have been dramatically patterned in color. Only 17 different types of glass panel are used, and the bright colors are screen-printed onto them. It blurs the regularity of the floor divisions and allows entire elevations to be read as intricately patterned collages. The design incorporates areas of increased transparency at viewing level, while elements of greater opacity are used to conceal the concrete frame.

Color is restricted where people can look out (alternate windows are openable), and tends to become more opaque to conceal the concrete frame, but this underlying order is at first obscure, and whole elevations are read as huge intricate patterns topped by a topped by a red structure that develops horizontally and juts out from the perimeter of the tower. When the lights are on at night, the effect is intensified as the building is reflected in the water of the harbor. Forms and colors define a simple image that is immediately perceived, able to capture the attention of the passer-by, but also of those who today visit the old port especially to admire this new icon of contemporary architecture.

The absence of a dominant color amongst the yellow, red, green, white and grey, gives the facade of the building a dynamic and playful aspect, which is rendered even livelier by its numerous windows. At the sides, long black and white stripes interrupt and also form part of this colorful collage. It forms a strident contrast with the surrounding area and is deliberately provocative. Behind this is Alsop’s awareness that the city is not only a physical place, but is above all an integral part of the imagination of those who inhabit it, absorbing the emotions that it transmits.

But it is the very modesty of its scale that allows the Colorium to be expressive without being aggressive. With its high-design neighbors, it creates the strong local identity this heterogeneous area lacks. Once again William Alsop, the British architect who uses color to create a dialogue between his works and their surroundings, has used them to make a distinctive symbol not only of a building but of an area.

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