--- version: alpha name: Kunsthalle description: An achromatic concrete wall where the orchid is the only colour in the building, and it is a label. meta: id: "theme-kunsthalle" model: "Claude Opus 5" author: "Claude Code" createdAt: "2026-09-02T00:58:16+09:00" updatedAt: "2026-09-02T00:58:16+09:00" version: "1.0.0" isNew: false lookbook: tagline: The wall is grey so the work is not. bestFor: Contemporary art institutions, galleries, biennials, artist archives, exhibition programmes avoidFor: SaaS products, e-commerce at volume, anything that needs a call to action above the fold defaultMode: light surfaceStyle: flat accentUse: underline caseStyle: labels-upper borderWidth: 1px imageTreatment: none motion: intensity: 1 duration: 400ms ease: "cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1)" signature: "Long, slow opacity only. Nothing in a gallery slides." displayFont: Marcellus displayKind: serif bodyFont: Albert Sans monoFont: Fragment Mono colors: background: "#BFC1BB" foreground: "#000000" card: "#B7B9B4" card-foreground: "#000000" popover: "#B7B9B4" popover-foreground: "#000000" primary: "#735A81" primary-foreground: "#F9FBF5" secondary: "#AEB1AA" secondary-foreground: "#000000" muted: "#AEB1AA" muted-foreground: "#3F4439" accent: "#42442A" accent-foreground: "#F9FBF5" destructive: "#B6322D" destructive-foreground: "#F9FBF5" border: "#9EA19B" input: "#9EA19B" ring: "#735A81" chart-1: "#826493" chart-2: "#957AA4" chart-3: "#675173" chart-4: "#A996B5" chart-5: "#4F4257" colorsDark: background: "#252D18" foreground: "#FFFFFF" card: "#2F391C" card-foreground: "#FFFFFF" popover: "#2F391C" popover-foreground: "#FFFFFF" primary: "#E1C5F2" primary-foreground: "#0A0F03" secondary: "#39471E" secondary-foreground: "#FFFFFF" muted: "#39471E" muted-foreground: "#A8B49C" accent: "#8C8F73" accent-foreground: "#0A0F03" destructive: "#FFBFB7" destructive-foreground: "#0A0F03" border: "#4A5732" input: "#4A5732" ring: "#E1C5F2" chart-1: "#B696C9" chart-2: "#987DA8" chart-3: "#CBB3D9" chart-4: "#7C6986" chart-5: "#DACAE3" typography: display-lg: fontFamily: Marcellus fontSize: 64px fontWeight: 400 lineHeight: 1.06 letterSpacing: -0.02em headline-lg: fontFamily: Marcellus fontSize: 34px fontWeight: 400 lineHeight: 1.18 letterSpacing: -0.01em headline-md: fontFamily: Marcellus fontSize: 21px fontWeight: 400 lineHeight: 1.34 body-lg: fontFamily: Albert Sans fontSize: 17px fontWeight: 300 lineHeight: 1.7 body-md: fontFamily: Albert Sans fontSize: 15.5px fontWeight: 300 lineHeight: 1.68 body-sm: fontFamily: Albert Sans fontSize: 13px fontWeight: 400 lineHeight: 1.55 label-caps: fontFamily: Albert Sans fontSize: 10px fontWeight: 600 lineHeight: 1.1 letterSpacing: 0.2em label-mono: fontFamily: Fragment Mono fontSize: 12px fontWeight: 400 lineHeight: 1.5 letterSpacing: 0.02em numeral-xl: fontFamily: Fragment Mono fontSize: 44px fontWeight: 400 lineHeight: 1.02 letterSpacing: -0.01em rounded: none: 0px sm: 0px md: 0px lg: 0px xl: 0px full: 9999px spacing: base: 16px xs: 4px sm: 8px md: 16px lg: 32px xl: 96px gutter: 24px margin: 96px measure: 60ch components: button-primary: backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}" textColor: "{colors.primary-foreground}" rounded: "{rounded.none}" padding: 13px button-ghost: backgroundColor: transparent textColor: "{colors.foreground}" rounded: "{rounded.none}" padding: 13px card-panel: backgroundColor: "{colors.card}" textColor: "{colors.foreground}" rounded: "{rounded.none}" padding: 0px badge-label: backgroundColor: transparent textColor: "{colors.accent}" typography: "{typography.label-caps}" rounded: "{rounded.none}" --- # Kunsthalle ## Overview Kunsthalle is a wall. The ground is a nearly achromatic concrete grey — the grey of a gallery that has been repainted forty times — and the only saturated thing in the building is an orchid, used at label size. The structural commitment is the **hang line**: every block on every page hangs from a single vertical at 96px from the left margin, and nothing is centred, ever. Images hang from it, headings hang from it, captions hang from it. The right edge of the page is ragged and that is correct; a gallery hangs work at a consistent height and lets the ends fall where they fall. Card padding is zero. There are no cards in this system — an image sits directly on the wall with its caption below-left at 60% width. It suits institutions, biennials and archives. It is wrong for anything that needs a button above the fold, because the fold here is a photograph. ## Colors Grey, and one orchid. - **Ground:** concrete. Chroma is almost nil, which is deliberate: the ground must not tint the artwork sitting on it, and any warmth in the wall becomes a cast in every image. - **Primary (orchid):** the institution's own voice — book, become a member, the one filled button per page. - **Accent:** deep green, used as an **underline** on labels and links. It is the only other colour and it appears at 10px. Solved to 3:1, because an underline is a graphical object. - **Neutrals** step in very small increments (0.024), so the wall has depth without ever having a hue. - Charts are monochrome. An institution's charts are attendance and acquisitions and neither needs a palette. ## Typography Marcellus for titles, Albert Sans Light for text, Fragment Mono for the label. - **Display:** Marcellus at 400, 64px. A Roman capital face with real inscription quality; it is used for the exhibition title and the artist's name and nothing else. - **Body is set at weight 300** — the only theme in the library with light body text. On a mid-grey ground at 15.5px it holds, and it keeps the wall quiet. - **Fragment Mono** is the wall label: medium, dimensions, date, credit line. A gallery label is a mono block and this system prints it as one. - Uppercase at 0.2em is reserved for the label header — ARTIST, TITLE, MEDIUM — and never used for headings. ## Layout **The hang line at 96px.** Everything on every page hangs from one vertical. Margins are 96px, gutters 24px, and the section rhythm is 96px of vertical space — the same number three times, which is what makes the pages feel like rooms. A work is: image, then a caption below-left at 60% of the image width. Never beside, never centred, never overlaid. The caption block is four lines — artist, title and date, medium, credit — set in Fragment Mono at 12px. There is no grid of works. Exhibition indexes are single-column, one work per screen-height, because scrolling past a work at speed is the thing a gallery site should make slightly difficult. ## Elevation & Depth None. No shadows in either mode, no borders on images, no cards. The only structural line in the system is a 1px rule under the label header. Motion is 400ms of opacity and nothing else. No transforms, no slides, no parallax. A gallery site that moves its images while you look at them is competing with them. ## Shapes Zero radius on everything except the one pill, which is the membership button. Images are never rounded and never cropped to a ratio — a work is reproduced at its own proportions, which means rows have uneven heights and that is the correct outcome. The image treatment is "none": no filter, no duotone, no grade. Artwork is reproduced, not styled. ## Components - **Wall label:** uppercase 10px header row, then four mono lines. Sits below-left of the image at 60% width. Always. - **Exhibition header:** Marcellus title at 64px on the hang line, dates in mono beneath, a single orchid button at the bottom left. - **Index row:** date range in mono in a 140px left column, title in Marcellus at 34px, status in accent-underlined label-caps. A 1px rule below. - **Links:** foreground text with a 1px accent underline offset 4px. No hover colour change — the underline thickens to 2px. - **Buttons:** orchid fill, zero radius. One per page. ## Do's and Don'ts - Do hang everything from the 96px line and let the right edge go ragged. - Do put the caption below-left at 60% width, every time. - Do reproduce images at their own proportions. - Don't centre anything. - Don't crop artwork to a grid ratio. - Don't apply a filter or duotone to a work. - Don't put more than one filled button on a page.