Red takes on different psychologies in different places: luck and happiness in China, good fortune in Iran and mourning in South Africa. Red is the most common color across the world's 192 independent national flags. Art has benefitted from it, too, and it's reckoned to place value on all works sold at auction - for one, a Piet Mondrian devoid of the color sells for 50 percent less than with it.

Architects have also indulged in red, from Frank Lloyd Wright's adoption of it as his signature color to Eero Saarinen's use of it in the modernist TWA terminal at JFK Airport in New York.

"Red is fundamental to the human condition," writes art historian Stella Paul in her introduction to Phaidon's new tome Red: Architecture in Monochrome. And a remarkable body of architecture, it also transpires.

- CDLP