Color coordination project for the historic shipyard site of La Ciotat: A geopoetic approach to urban color design

Abstract

The color coordination project focuses on an important industrial heritage site in the Mediterranean—the shipyards of the town of La Ciotat, which is situated in southeastern France. As part of a waterfront requalification project, the company, La Ciotat Shipyards, commissioned a color consulting design agency to collaborate in redeveloping the site and maintaining its unique identity. This article aims to present the color research conducted by the agency Nacarat Color Design in 2018, by putting it into perspective alongside the 1974 work carried out by renowned color designer, Jean-Philippe Lenclos, on the same industrial site but in a different political, economic, and social context. Applying a geopoetic approach, the color coordination project focuses first on understanding the current identity of the site and its history; second on applying a chromatic field research method; and, third on exploring the narratives brought by the use of color and materials. The complex social history of the shipyards of La Ciotat and its industrial conversion has created new challenges for the town, its inhabitants, and its workers. The conclusions of this study show how color and materials are understood as markers of the site's history, playing not only an important role in the affirmation of historical identity and the creation of a continuity, but also in the construction of a new narrative for a site that reinvents itself.