Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
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Why did American houses lose their color? This video traces the surprisingly complicated history of beige, gray, and black homes—from San Francisco’s Victorian Painted Ladies to lead paint, tuberculosis, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, HOAs, and the economics of home resale.
Using one 1890s Victorian house as a timeline, we peel back more than a century of exterior paint to see how changing technology, health fears, manufacturing, maintenance costs, and property values shaped the colors of American homes.
Early homeowners used paint to make wood look like expensive stone. Then germ theory and tuberculosis helped turn white into a symbol of cleanliness—at exactly the moment toxic white lead became one of the most important ingredients in house paint. Later came cheap battleship gray, San Francisco’s 1960s Colorist Movement, the rise of the Painted Ladies, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, and the promise that homeowners might never need to paint again.
Today, virtually the entire color spectrum is available. So why do so many new American houses still end up gray, beige, white, or black?
The answer has less to do with simple aesthetic taste than you might expect. Manufacturing constraints, maintenance, resale value, homeowners associations, and the transformation of houses into financial assets all influence what colors actually make it onto our buildings.
00:00 - The Beige Era
00:46 - Origin of the Painted Ladies
01:31 - Tuberculosis Scare
03:28 - Danger of White Paint
04:10 - Navy Paint Surplus
05:08 - Colorist Movement
06:05 - Aluminum Siding
07:31 - Aluminum Successor
07:57 - HOA Influence
**Sources / further reading:**
- National Park Service — *Preservation Brief 10: Exterior Paint Problems on Historic Woodwork*
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — *History of World TB Day*
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — resources on lead-based paint and the 1978 residential paint ban
- Le Corbusier — *L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui* (1925), including the “Law of Ripolin”
- San Francisco Chronicle — reporting on Butch Kardum, the Colorist Movement, and the history of San Francisco’s colorful Victorian houses
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — *Research Needs: Glass Solar Reflectance and Vinyl Siding*
- Sherwin-Williams — *Homeowners Association Color Archive*
- Zillow — *2026 Paint Color Analysis*
#Architecture #HomeDesign #SanFrancisco
__Membership__
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCYAm24PkejQR2xMgJgn7xwg/join
__About the Channel__
Architecture with Stewart is a YouTube journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
__About Me__
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
__Contact__
FOLLOW me on instagram: @stewart_hicks & @designwithco
Design With Company: designwith.co
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: https://arch.uic.edu/
__Attributions__
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Shutterstock.
Music provided by Epidemic Sound and includes music from Chromatic by Tom Fox
youtube.com/@chromaticbytomfox"
#architecture #urbandesign
Checkout our next video right now: nebula.tv/videos/stewarthicks-who-gets-to-decide-if-your-street-is-safe
Watch Great Cities: nebula.tv/greatcities?ref=stewarthicks
Why did American houses lose their color? This video traces the surprisingly complicated history of beige, gray, and black homes—from San Francisco’s Victorian Painted Ladies to lead paint, tuberculosis, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, HOAs, and the economics of home resale.
Using one 1890s Victorian house as a timeline, we peel back more than a century of exterior paint to see how changing technology, health fears, manufacturing, maintenance costs, and property values shaped the colors of American homes.
Early homeowners used paint to make wood look like expensive stone. Then germ theory and tuberculosis helped turn white into a symbol of cleanliness—at exactly the moment toxic white lead became one of the most important ingredients in house paint. Later came cheap battleship gray, San Francisco’s 1960s Colorist Movement, the rise of the Painted Ladies, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, and the promise that homeowners might never need to paint again.
Today, virtually the entire color spectrum is available. So why do so many new American houses still end up gray, beige, white, or black?
The answer has less to do with simple aesthetic taste than you might expect. Manufacturing constraints, maintenance, resale value, homeowners associations, and the transformation of houses into financial assets all influence what colors actually make it onto our buildings.
00:00 - The Beige Era
00:46 - Origin of the Painted Ladies
01:31 - Tuberculosis Scare
03:28 - Danger of White Paint
04:10 - Navy Paint Surplus
05:08 - Colorist Movement
06:05 - Aluminum Siding
07:31 - Aluminum Successor
07:57 - HOA Influence
**Sources / further reading:**
- National Park Service — *Preservation Brief 10: Exterior Paint Problems on Historic Woodwork*
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — *History of World TB Day*
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — resources on lead-based paint and the 1978 residential paint ban
- Le Corbusier — *L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui* (1925), including the “Law of Ripolin”
- San Francisco Chronicle — reporting on Butch Kardum, the Colorist Movement, and the history of San Francisco’s colorful Victorian houses
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — *Research Needs: Glass Solar Reflectance and Vinyl Siding*
- Sherwin-Williams — *Homeowners Association Color Archive*
- Zillow — *2026 Paint Color Analysis*
#Architecture #HomeDesign #SanFrancisco
__Membership__
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCYAm24PkejQR2xMgJgn7xwg/join
__About the Channel__
Architecture with Stewart is a YouTube journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
__About Me__
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
__Contact__
FOLLOW me on instagram: @stewart_hicks & @designwithco
Design With Company: designwith.co
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: https://arch.uic.edu/
__Attributions__
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Shutterstock.
Music provided by Epidemic Sound and includes music from Chromatic by Tom Fox
youtube.com/@chromaticbytomfox"
#architecture #urbandesign
![All Good Architecture Leaks [5 Point Guide]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/S0j0d2ymixY/mqdefault.jpg "All Good Architecture Leaks [5 Point Guide]
There is a saying that ‘all good architecture leaks’. While likely not intended as an endorsement for water damage, this video takes the phrase seriously by playfully sorting through some of architecture’s greatest leaks. Frank Lloyd Wright was famously dismissive of the many unintentional leaks in his buildings, once telling Mr Johnson to move his table if he didn’t like it getting rained on. However, there are a number of great intentional leaks throughout architecture as well, such as the entry hall of Peter Zumthor’s Therme Baths in Vals. The walls allow groundwater to seep in from the surrounding mountain while forming beautiful murals out of mineral deposits the water picked up while on its journey through the earth. Whether leaks are intentional or unintentional, they are an inevitable and important reality for architects. There should always be plans for the water that will get into our buildings and this video offers five humorous strategies for making those plans.
FOLLOW me on instagram: @stewart_hicks & @designwithco
Design With Company: https://designwith.co
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: https://arch.uic.edu/
#architecture #leaks #goodarchitecture")
![Inside Mies van der Rohes LOST House in Wyoming [Resor House]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TCT3Um-ozFE/mqdefault.jpg "Inside Mies van der Rohes LOST House in Wyoming [Resor House]
The Resor House was a hugely pivotal project for Mies van der Rohe, in both his life, and his career. It was his first commission in the United States and prior to landing in Chicago, he lived for two months on the site of the house near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Its design was unique for Mies in its rural landscape setting and material choices, mainly its wood-clad exterior and interior. While it was never constructed due to cost overruns, the design documents and working models were collected by MoMA in NY, where the client, Helen Resor was on the Board of Directors. This video traces a digital reconstruction of the house — using those archival documents — to serve as the subject of an in depth tour and analysis. What sorts of discoveries are to be found inside this unbuilt masterpiece?
Link to Explore
https://api2.enscape3d.com/v1/view/fd28ef2f-66b4-4f4d-8789-4b94e68e39aa
**Become a member to download the 3D file**
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYAm24PkejQR2xMgJgn7xwg/join
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:46 Timeline
04:39 Analysis
07:56 3D Modeling
08:40 Exploration
11:34 Takeaways
About the Channel
Architecture with Stewart is a YouTube journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
About Stewart
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
Links
FOLLOW me on instagram: @stewart_hicks & @designwithco
Design With Company: https://designwith.co
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: https://arch.uic.edu/")
