When talking about Beijing, people often think of the grey courtyard houses and alleyways, while Harbin conjures up a mental image of small yellow buildings. Perhaps in the near future, Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, will make us think of the color green especially in Xianlin, a new city area in the east famous for its large number of colleges and universities.

The main color of buildings there will be green, according to a new plan which has become a hot topic among locals.

The idea to focus on green, the first such plan in Jiangsu Province, was approved by government experts and academics last week.

"It means the main image of this 80-square-kilometre city area should be green. In other words, buildings should be in harmony with the main color; they don't have to all be green, for example, grey can be one of the harmonious colors," explained Zhang Jie, professor of Tsinghua University who is leading the group which came up with the plan.

As soon as the main color was decided, people began to talk about it and some local newspapers such as Modern Express and Jinling Evening News set up hotlines for citizens to discuss their views.

"The color control guiding plan is welcomed by most of my schoolmates here," said Li Xiaowei, a student at the Xianlin branch campus of Nanjing Normal University.

She said many of the school buildings in Xianlin are white while houses are very colorful, which looks disorderly and is not in keeping with the surrounding mountains.

"We do not want to see some particular architecture destroying the overall aesthetic feeling here; the plan will prevent that," she said.

"Of course we dislike buildings which are inconsistent with the environment," said Zhang Liangpeng, a 31-year-old civil servant.

"Some well-designed and nicely-colored buildings will be luminous points around the city."

"But I wonder if the color controls will make the city's buildings a little dull," he added.

Some said color control should be taken even further. The color of shop signs and outdoor advertisements should also be controlled, advised Nie Weigu, a professor from the Art Research Institute of Nanjing University.

Color control could be carried out based on different districts and functions; for instance, school buildings could be one color and recreational places another, suggested Zhang Quan, vice-director of the provincial construction department.

City colors should be not only harmonious but also exciting and energetic, said Gao Minquan, a professor at Southeast University.

The Nanjing Urban Planning Bureau hopes more people will take part in the debate about color. The next step might be to think of the main color of the whole city.

Except for several big cities, very few cities across the country have chosen a main color for their architecture.

Beijing chose grey as its symbolic color in 2000. On November last year, Shenyang in the northeast chose light grey and light coffee as its main city colors.

(China Daily January 9, 2006)