Shades of Dissent Over Beijing’s Bid for a Gray Color Scheme

As China becomes increasingly complex, it’s no longer possible to see the country in terms of black and white, only in shades of gray.

Literally.

This ancient city is undergoing a make-over by urban planners who have hit upon what they consider the ideal color scheme for Beijing in the 21st century: gray, in all its ashy glory.

Since last spring, workers armed with tons of gray paint have been busy touching up hundreds of buildings and bridges to bring some sort of chromatic order to the Chinese capital.

The idea, municipal pooh-bahs say, is to give the city’s face a “staid, tasteful, plain but elegant and harmonious” look, especially as Olympics inspectors arrive here next week to weigh China’s bid to host the 2008 Summer Games.

But the decision has some residents seeing red. Gray, they grumble, is hardly the color they would pick to represent themselves or to advertise their city as a splashy, modern destination for worldly visitors. Rather, it is drabness by decree.

“Can you imagine the Olympics being held in an all-gray city?” scoffed Ni Hong, a 22-year-old student. “ Should we go back to the Mao era when everybody dressed in blue, green, black and gray? That’s nonsense!”

The clamor began last fall when word got out about the directive, which detractors lambasted as a decision by colorless men in gray suits. Internet chat rooms and online bulletin boards dripped with criticism in bold, black Chinese characters. A snap poll by Web portal https://www.sina.com registered opposition at 70%.

“Gray makes me sick,” declared one Internet user.

City planners insist that the hue (and cry) is all based on a misunderstanding. Their intention, they say, was never to paint the town gray--at least not just gray.

Technically, the government aim is “compound colors with gray as the base,” which officials say leaves plenty of room for chromatic diversity. Gray need only be the predominant color in a pattern, or blended with other hues to mute them.

To guide the developers and designers, the city has issued a chart showing 42 different color possibilities, all of which are about as riotous as the “Burnt Sienna” found in classic Crayola crayon box. Bright red, China’s traditional color of happiness and prosperity, is out; so is the rich yellow favored by Chinese emperors of yore. Understatement is in.

Keeping things toned down will help Beijing appear more dignified, officials say. Their anointment of gray as the “principal color” was based on a consensus of respected architects who were summoned last year for a convocation of the city’s eminences grises of urban design.

“We must first consider historical continuity,” Fu Bonan, director of the Municipal Committee for Urban Construction, told the Beijing Daily. “Beijing is a city famous for its history and culture, and in its 800 years as the capital, it has developed a gray color in accordance with its geographic and climatic characteristics.”

Few would dispute that the color matches Beijing’s winter weather and its polluted skies, which often do more to turn the city gray than all the paint the government can mix. And so far the government has mixed a lot: enough to cover more than 32 million square yards of walls and bridges, beginning with structures along ring roads in the city.

“This is Beijing’s traditional color,” Fu said.

But his agency also defends its policy as forward-looking. No one is advocating a return to the old gunmetal gray of the bricks used to erect the courtyard homes in the city’s ancient alleyways, officials say.

“It’s not pure gray or traditional gray. It’s a spectrum of colors based on gray,” said Guo Weidong, spokesman for the construction committee. “Think about it. Out of thousands upon thousands of colors, the great majority contain some gray--green-gray, blue-gray, red-gray and so on.”

And brighter colors are still allowed as decorative touches, he says. But determining exactly which hues are acceptable can be difficult when the official chart offers just 42 possibilities--leaving a large, well, gray area.