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coloration of public spaces, whether commercial or civic, which has a powerful subliminal effect on the collective unconscious? What I find remarkable—particularly in the decoration of zones such as banks, gyms, and mass transportation—is that a color, in itself beautiful, can appear hideous if applied to the wrong purpose or in the wrong context. How do we determine what is wrong? The colors employed by commercial or public interiors, let alone residential, are nowadays driven largely by standardized new building materials: plastics, compositions, wood substitutes, prefab components, aluminum, acoustical ceiling panels, highly standardized contract textiles, paints and other finishes, and their preordained color schemes. None of these components is strong enough to become a leading aesthetic presence, rather the whole is as weak as the sum total of its anodyne parts, either colorless or haphazardly colored. The result: banks, airports, donut shops, pharmacies, fast food emporia, city halls, shopping malls and now even private residences are all of the same generic standardized color schemes driven by synthetic materials and standard chemical colors. Also, certain materials are inimical to the colors that saturate them. The dignity that color, let alone form, once imparted and became often identified with certain enterprises, has now, in many quarters, been thoughtlessly abandoned. The dreary logos, humorless, limited in color range or garishly fluorescent, might be appropriate to the printed page but are clueless when translated into architecture. This viewpoint does not negate the importance of new building materials, new graphic design and new architecture, nor for that matter, standardization, which is commercially necessary, the reflection of a vibrant economic environment. HYLAND