Keep Anchorage Beige
What is beige? Beige is defined as a pale sandy yellowish brown color.
Synonyms include fawn, buff, khaki, biscuit, sand, café au lait, ecru and taupe. Google dictionary defines a color as the property possessed by an object producing different sensations on the eye - as a result of the way an object reflects or emits light.
Anchorage, the main city in Alaska, is anchored by a foundation of beige buildings. An argument could be made that a more appropriate name for our city is Anchorbeige. It is by default the Unofficial Color of the Last Frontier. There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong being a city of beige – it’s just when it becomes our uncontrolled default that it may become troublesome. Minimally it elicits curiosity.
How did we get here? How did we come to live in Beige-land? Was it intentional? Was it accidental?
Did someone in the Lower 48 accidentally mix up a huge order of paint and then in a panic dump it on Alaska to consume? Did a container full of premixed exterior paint arrive in the Port of Anchorage as a gift from a mysterious donor? Did a developer lose an arm wrestling match or a hand of poker late one night in a bar and get stuck with a boatload of beige paint? Was it handed down to an unsuspecting public through a back room handshake deal?
Does beige possess a technical superior power? Could it possibly adhere more firmly to its substrate? Is it cheaper to make? Is there less pigment in beige paint? Is it lighter weight and therefore less expensive to transport? Does it last longer when battling the elements? Are we trying to blend in with dirty snow and dusty break-up? Were too many of our frontier buildings peed on? Did drunkards throw beer on the side of our walls? Do we assume that white will only get dirty so we might as well start off with a dirty white? Are we afraid we would go snow blind if buildings were white? Would we become disoriented and lose our way in a winter wonderland?
Did that initial beige move get painted all around town so that our neighbors felt like that was the safe route to take? Just paint it beige - everyone is doing it. Are we trying to hide so tourists don’t fall in love with Anchorage and want to move here? Are we trying to weed out potential residents? Are we (the self-sufficient badass Alaskans) - are we really the lot to play it safe? Did we lose our soul? Our will to live? Are we trying to kill ourselves softly? What happened to our guts? Our brave pioneer blood?!
What defines a “good” color? What about a “safe” one? Or an audacious one?
Beige is technically a color. But is it also more? Does it represent a place, a feeling, a state of mind? As a color, does it affect our mood? Does it reflect our collective soul? Does it illuminate the ideals of our community? How did we become a city of beige? Is it not curious? Are we not curious? How did we arrive at this status quo? Is beige the least offensive neutral non-color color? Is a developers neighborhood in move in ready beige – is that what we want? Or is that just what was bestowed upon us? If everyone is playing by the same set of safe rules, how do we allow for our differences?
Technically speaking white is the safest non-color “color” out there. It is achromatic (having no hue) because it fully reflects and scatters all visible wavelengths of light. Due to this inherent trait, it is continually changing according to the natural world around us. It looks different depending on the time of day and changes not only with the course of a day but also with the seasonal changes over the course of a year.
Through our affinity for beige are we trying to hark back to simpler times when we started out as a tent city full of canvas? The frontier tents were quite beautiful in their simplicity and authenticity of materials. There is something exquisite about materials in their natural raw state such as canvas, wood and leather - all in the family of original beige.
The word beige originated to describe materials in their natural state such as raw untreated wool and leather. In Anchorage, are we naturally beige or are we artificially beige? Is there a difference? Is one better than the other? Does it even matter in the Last Frontier of Beige? Is it safety in beige because when we walk like the neighbors we must be doing something right?
Are we afraid to compete with our stunningly beautiful natural environment? Maybe the “founding pioneers” wanted the built environment to take an explicitly clear step back? Perhaps a color other than beige would be in direct competition with the natural world and not only distract us from our sunsets but also compete with Mother Nature? The man-made world ( design and architecture ) will never surpass the natural world so maybe we assume that the wisest role would be to concede the challenge before even attempting an appropriate response? Is the thinking that everybody else is doing it therefore it must be right? Beige must be the way forward? Did we unwittingly rewrite our state of Alaska motto from “North to the Future” to become “North to the Beige.” Did Alaska the Last Frontier accidentally become Alaska the Last Frontier in Beige? Is this the legacy that we want to stake our claim to? Is this the legacy we want to leave behind for our children? Is this the impression we want to leave with our visitors?
Beige is one of the lowest common denominators of our built environment. It is ubiquitous to our manmade surroundings. It is neutral. It is safe. It is easy.
Are we the Switzerland of the north? Do we stake no claim or are we staking our claim as a neutral play-it-safe city of the north? Does playing it safe and taking the neutral ground align with the pioneer spirit of our state? Do we miss our days as a raw canvas tent city? Are we concerned with the solar gain that would happen with a darker color? Is beige an environmentally friendly move made to save cooling costs in the summer? But what about in the winter when we might want more of a solar gain?
To beige or not to beige, that seems to be our perpetual question in the Last Frontier.
“Courage is knowing what not to fear.” Plato
Stay safe. Stay beige…
Love, Agent 009
Delivered for Anchorage’s Design Week September, the 15th 2018 by Agent Bond at the Anchorage Museum for Pecha Kucha hosted by the Alaska Design Forum.
Listen to Agent Bond deliver along with the accompanying slideshow on YouTube HERE.