The Significance of Abstraction by Fiona McLachlan
Sat, Mar 21
|Virtual Event
Celebrate International Colour Day with the CRSC! Join us in welcoming Fiona McLachlan (University of Edinburgh), on The Significance of Abstraction: Painting and collage as a discursive tool for colour design in architecture.
Time & Location
Mar 21, 2026, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EDT
Virtual Event
About the event
Celebrate International Colour Day with the CRSC!
The Significance of Abstraction:
Painting and collage as a discursive tool for colour design in architecture
Image captions: Cables Wynd_Warp and Weft Diptych by F. McLachlan (left); Part of Facade study abstracted collage by F. McLachlan (right).
Architects and designers use abstracted sketches, plans, diagrams and models as a means to clarify conceptual thinking. Although sophisticated computer renders are now customary– seeking realism in representation– digital colour can be frustratingly variable and unreliable. Analogue hand drawings and physical models remain useful and tangible, although hand-painting in contemporary practice is less common. As a research method, and in teaching colour design for architecture, painting can embed colour directly within the process of enquiry and maintain a degree of abstraction.