There is an orange that belongs to Chennai, the orange of kanakambaram. Then there is a particular shade of violet that is found in December poo. The sea changes its blue with the hour. Walls, buses, flowers, and old houses hold colours that seem to exist only here. Ask what colour Chennai is and the answer keeps changing, depending on what one chooses to see.
Thirupurasundari Sevvel, an architect, urban planner, historian, curator, and heritage educator, who has spent years walking this city, street by street, refuses to pick one colour to describe it. She says, “For me, it is difficult to associate Chennai with just one colour. I think the colour I see in the city changes depending on my mood, my state of mind, and even the time of the day. For me, Madras is not one colour. Madras is a palette.”
Srishti Prabakar, an artist, urban planner, and researcher behind the Instagram project @anchoredhues_, has synaesthesia and hears sound as colour. Even from Germany, where she now lives, she cannot reduce the Chennai she grew up in to a single shade. “I don’t think it’s possible to put Chennai into that box,” she says. Nia Zera, an artist and writer, arrives at a similar conclusion, calling Chennai “the most colourful city, at least I have ever known” and describing it as “colours in motion”. She justifies, “In Chennai you see the peculiar colours of kannadi valaiyal, big, colourful nose pins, striped lungis, shirts with loud floral prints, Madurai kattam, lion and elephant prints, Karagattam-inspired blouses and saris, and jannal vecha jackets. The fashion of trans people in the city too is very loud and colourful.”
Then there are those who will choose, if pressed. For Murali Murugan, chief architect at Murali Architects, it is brick red, the colour he associates with Chennai Central, Egmore Station, and the Museum Theatre; places that have collectively shaped his experiences in the city. Thanusheeya VS, founder of Kaii Madras, sees mustard instead, in “old Madras homes, warm sunlight, cotton saris, and walls that have aged beautifully over time.”
This Madras Month, we read the city through its colours — as seen by the artists and architects who have spent years here.
Brick Red
Srishti: She mentions the terracotta of Indo-Saracenic buildings. “To be very specific, it was the Central station red. I studied in a different city and I travelled a lot. So for me, coming home to Madras meant seeing the station’s red.”
Murali: Particularly the reddish tone of brick — along with grey stone. Many of Chennai’s landmarks like Chennai Central, Egmore Station, university buildings, public buildings, memorials, and the Museum Theatre, were built in the Indo-Saracenic style, where brick and stone form a strong part of the architectural expression. Collectively, these buildings create a shared historical identity for the city.
Blue
Thanusheeya: It’s the blue of the sea, sometimes bright, grey, or almost colourless. The beach has always been where Chennai breathes. For me, that blue holds childhood, family, silence, comfort, and home.
Srishti: Right now, Madras for me is definitely this deep turquoise blue. Because of the beach, I’ve grown up seeing the beach across different times of the day, different seasons, different personal moments. So, that colour instantly reminds me of home. It is also the one colour that really can’t be found anywhere else and is difficult to reproduce — the dramatic sea and the sky. It’s that mix of green, blue, and grey.
Thirupurasundari: The blue of the sea and the sky are such strong parts of the city’s visual character.
Yellow
Thirupurasundari: I think yellow is probably one of the most over-represented colours of Chennai now, especially after Chennai Super Kings. But even that is interesting, because yellow has always been part of the city in so many other ways — the manja pai, the veyil, turmeric, flowers, and old walls.
Srishti: Lemon yellow — people associate it with Aadi maasam because of amman temples. Yellow also comes from IPL and autos. Also, Chennaiites put manjal on their face. Plus, it’s warm and hot in Chennai.
Murali: Yellow is commonly seen in many Housing Board developments. A large number of high-density housing projects use this colour, and over time it has become associated with lower-income communities and with people who have limited choices in terms of housing. When I see these buildings, particularly those with very little green space, inadequate maintenance, and deteriorating finishes, I experience a sense of sadness. In many instances, I feel that we are depriving people of some of the basic qualities that make everyday life more humane and dignified. That creates, for me, a certain sense of guilt associated with this Housing Board yellow.
Thanusheeya: It reminds me of old Madras homes, warm sunlight, cotton saris, and walls that have aged beautifully over time.
Nia Zera: Bold, bordered pattu saris, “yellow and brown, the kattam saris.”
Orange
Thirupurasundari: Kanakambaram is not just orange anymore. For many of us, that orange immediately brings back flower markets, hair, festivals, people, and particular moments.
Thanusheeya: Kanakambaram orange immediately takes me to women wearing flowers in their hair.
Green
Srishti: Nungambakkam will always be in green colour, which you see when light comes through the leaves.
Thanusheeya: Green reminds me of Mylapore — the banana leaves, mango-leaf thoranams, flower sellers, and the trees near old homes.
Maroon
Thanusheeya: The colour that comes to my mind is maroon. I see it in old Madras buildings, temple borders, saris, signboards, and even in the floors of homes I grew up visiting. Maybe I don’t notice it everywhere today, but memory has made it a very Madras colour for me — deep, warm, and familiar.
Neon
Srishti: T Nagar will probably be this neon bright colour because of all the signboards and the shopping.
Grey, white, and silver
Thirupurasundari: “Somehow, grey and silver remind me of the coast. Maybe because of the fish markets and dried fish. In that morning light, the scales of the fish have a beautiful silver shine.” What she thinks are missed are the mundane, everyday colours of Chennai. “The regular, routine things that we see every day but don’t necessarily photograph or celebrate — the iron, the metal, the greys, and duller shades, the colours of tools, shutters, railings, vehicles, and everyday work. Chennai is a city made by people and by manpower. So much of the city has been built, repaired, carried, painted, and maintained by people. But we don’t often see those colours and that labour represented when we talk about the visual identity of Chennai. We tend to photograph the spectacular. I think we should also look at the ordinary colours of the city.”
Murali: The colour I feel is most frequently overrepresented in photographs and films is white. Elite or high-end residences are often portrayed as white buildings surrounded by green lawns and flowering plants. This visual language is particularly associated with areas such as Boat Club, Poes Garden, and some of the more affluent parts of Adyar. White was traditionally regarded as a highly respected and aspirational colour. At the same time, it is important to note that white is not exclusive to elite neighbourhoods. Traditional houses in Triplicane and Mylapore also often have white walls, frequently combined with tile roofs.
Colours, however, hold more than nostalgia and beauty. That is why it is as important to read them. “I think colours can sometimes become triggers for memories of discrimination or even an invisible glass wall,” says Thirupurasundari. She points out that something as small as a uniform, a particular shade worn on a particular body, could tell you who was expected to serve, who was expected to enter through which door, who was allowed to stand at the centre of a room. The colour, she says, became a record of a hierarchy that existed nowhere in writing. “So for me, colour can sometimes reveal these invisible boundaries. It can bring back a memory of a time when you felt included, excluded, or made to feel that there was a glass wall between you and someone else,” she shares.
Beyond these lenses, the charms and the colours of old Madras, these aritsts feel, are slowly vanishing as time works its magic. Thanusheeya echoes this sentiment, “I feel we are slowly losing shades of old Madras — the red oxide floors, lime-washed walls, wooden doors, and hand-painted signboards.” Thirupurasundari reminds, “I think we are slowly losing some of these everyday colour associations because the city is becoming more uniform in many ways. New buildings, new materials, commercial branding and artificial colours are changing the visual character of our streets. Sometimes we don’t lose the colour itself. We lose the memory and the context that made that colour meaningful.”