Cultural difference in colour usages for building façades focusing on theme park buildings

Abstract

The notion of globalisation has become widely spread in various fields, and accordingly, it is increasingly more important to take account of indigenous culture characteristics in each field. An aspect of achieving globalisation, globalization with local consideration, is to consider the difference of colour usage between distinct cultures. This study suggests an approach to investigate the colour difference between eastern and western cultures with the case analysis of building façade colours in Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland. We analysed cultural colour usage characteristics and derived tendencies for both Paris and Tokyo Disneyland building façade colours. To do this, we use image based k-means clustering algorithm and CIELAB colour space distances to explore colour characteristics. Our analysis indicates an overall colour usage tendency that Paris uses more green and bluish colours and Tokyo uses more red and yellowish colours for building façades, based on CIELAB colour space values. The major motivation of this paper was to reflect the atmosphere and the mood of the space that can be easily felt but not readily expressible into a cultural colour palette. Eventually, by finding the characteristics of perceived colours, we hope to create a colour recommendation system for different cultures based on cultural clues.