A pastel Italian fantasy in Wales
Portmeirion
A holiday village built by one architect over fifty years, in the colours of the Italian Riviera.
Why Portmeirion is portmeirion turquoise
Portmeirion stands on a wooded headland above an estuary in North Wales. It is the work of one man, the architect Clough Williams-Ellis, who built it in stages between 1925 and 1976. He wanted to show that a beautiful site could be developed without spoiling it. The style is a playful version of an Italian coastal village: towers, domes, arches and a central square, some pieces rescued from demolished buildings elsewhere. Walls are painted in pink, ochre, turquoise and cream, with details picked out in a blue-green that became the village's own colour. Tricks of scale make it seem larger than it is. It was the setting for a television series in the 1960s and is run as a hotel.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Portmeirion
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Portmeirion" on Wikipedia. If you know Portmeirion and we have it wrong, tell us.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Madurai In: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Samarkand Uz: Adam Harangozó, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Khiva Uz: Doron, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Tobermory Gb: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bristol Gb: Chris Lathom-Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Notting Hill Gb: Chris Whippet, CC BY-SA 2.0, source