Strzalkowski, and Lewicka study how social forces influence color preferences. They report that “Pastelosis is a phenomenon that originated in Poland in the 1990s as a reaction to the gray color of modernist settlements that dominated communist urban spaces. This is manifested in changing the building façades through the introduction of pastel colors and their compositions. Critics of pastelosis attribute its popularity to the low level of architectural taste among the Polish population. Liking pink, orange, or blue elevations would thus be a sign of low cultural capital and of the lack of aesthetic training. . . . In two online experiments, participants . . . evaluated four different façades differing in color (gray, pastelosis, medium pastelosis, and antipastelosis), and were tested with respect to various measures of cultural capital and socio-demographics. Elevations with pastel colors were generally preferred to traditional gray colors. Experts were more critical of all changes than were the laypersons.”
Mateusz Strzalkowski, and Maria Lewicka. 2024. “Would You Rather Live in the Gray or Pink Building? Acceptance of Colored Façades of Apartment Blocks Among Architects and Laypersons and Their Relationship to Cultural Capital.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 95, 102279, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102279