Colour Palace
Dulwich Picture Gallery

The Colour Palace is a lively and celebratory fusion of European and African cultural traditions by Yinka Ilori and Pricegore, selected as the second Dulwich Pavilion for summer 2019.

The project is the outcome of an open design competition organized by the London Festival of Architecture and Dulwich Picture Gallery. The structure is intended as a celebration of colour, pattern and light, and a reflection of multicultural London. Dutch wax prints on display in a Lagos market, and mirrored in London’s ‘Little Lagos’ in nearby Peckham, inspired the bold geometric pattern of the pavilion, which create a powerful contrast alongside the Grade II* listed gallery building, designed by Sir John Soane.

The pavilion draws on many shared traditions of geometry and pattern in architecture, and the common solution of raising storage buildings on straddle stones. Raised on monumental feet, the lightweight pavilion is assembled from thousands of individual pieces of hand-painted timber. The combination of these elements creates layered facades of bold geometric patterns that shift and merge according to viewpoint recalling the fabric markets of Lagos, Nigeria.

Client
Dulwich Picture Gallery

Collaborators
Pricegore

Practice
Architecture