A Surprisingly Colorful Country

German buildings may never be as colorful as their Nordic neighbors, but this country certainly has become so much more vidid and expressive.

You need the distance of a couple of decades to appreciate the change. I saw the country in the 80s, and saw it with new eyes in the past few years.

Not all regions previously had the same degree of uniformity, though. The southern state of Bavaria, with its traditional murals and theme paintings, depicting life and work of craftsmen and guilds, on many historic buildings did have to overcome as much tristesse, to use a French word..

But even in Bavaria, buildings from the 20th century tended to exhibit the subdued, even depressed, shades of grey and beige that are now on their way out.

Building codes were the major culprit that kept any "real colors" off of German houses, and neighbors as well as historic monument preservation officials would take owners into court, almost aways assured of victory of the bland over the lively.

But something happened. Deep bordeaux red, bright Norwegian blue, sunny Tuscan yellow, can now be seen even in small towns. Furniture stores can now safely blast their presence onto your retina in obnoxious orange.

One of these days, I may research the phenomenon but for now, just noting the brighter sights will do.

The photo below shows a house in a small town on the Rhine river decorated with Salvador Dali style melting clocks.

And here is a set of garage doors from the same town, utterly inconceivable as everyday building art in Germany until two decades ago.