The role of white in the construction of visual representations in architecture is greater than that of all colors together. Contributing to this are: widespread use of limestone as a cheap and accessible building material; its being a protective material against termites that threaten wood components; when foamed it serves as an insulating and malleable building material (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete); as an airy paint it prevents condensation in a humid environment; and its light hue reflecting radiation makes it a fine finishing material for roofs and walls. All these have placed white as the prevalent color crossing eras and styles.

Although the sense of sight is central to visual perception, the picture attained in the brain is affected no less by many other factors. Evident is the fact that visual expressions are experienced in dreams, stories, memories and thoughts, even with eyes shut.

Cognitive research has pinpointed the visual means of the brain in several parallel sensory tracks, each responsible for another facet of the picture creation: the ventral system responsible for identifying borders and edges; the magnosolar system responsible for decoding depth and shadings; and the dorsal system that places the object in space. While co-ordination between the tracks creates automatic visual perception, a dissonance requires attention entailing visual disorder.

This idea is farther explained by brain researcher Anne Treisman of Princeton University as formulated in the Feature Integration Theory, emphasizing the role of 'attention' and its adhesive connection between the various features of the object. Treisman claims that disharmony between features, such as color, orientation and form, may serve to emphasize the object against its background. The reason would be that as the difference between the features of the object decreases, the amount of information gaps increases, and with it the need for subjective involvement in completing the visual picture.

The notion that emotional involvement is significant to every work of art was also expressed in the Gap Closing Theory developed in the 1960s by literature researchers Menachem Perry and Meir Sternberg. 

Based on a deliberate creation of 'attention deficiency', the theory claims that the reader's reaction is no less important than the text itself, since the process of closing gaps is what creates a dynamic interaction between the sequence of existing visual utterances and those that aren't necessarily there.

This process of information completion occurs, for instance, when we estimate the dimensions of an object while getting closer or further from it; when we identify a building as 'white', even when its hue changes according to the light intensity; or when we perceive a sense of depth or distance due to shading. All of this demonstrates that white is not necessarily  white, but merely a brain reality influenced by many factors.

Since this over-attention requires subjective involvement, it may intensify the experiencing of the building, enriching it with contents not necessarily found there.

The assumption that visual perception isn't particular but rather holistic is an important principle in the Gestalt Theory, which claims that lack of identity between the form of an object and its color is what insures the creation of spatial sequence - and the known example of the eye running between the 'vase' locked between two 'faces' well-demonstrates it (Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler). 

This is farther explained by the theory of light developed by Michel Eugene Chevreul, refuting an existence of 'pure' colors. In his book 'The Principle of Harmony and Contrast of Colors' from 1839, Chevreul claimed that the shade of each color always depends on its neighboring ones.

The theory of colors, based on the eye's reaction to the spectrum of light reflected from objects, actually evokes a complex cognitive dilemma. In spite of the explanation that pigment is but a structure-shaped atom causing an optional absorption of light, the human brain has trouble ignoring its so very tangible visual features.

This paradoxical perception causes, among others, a widespread error as if the color white were a substance totally void of pigment. The source of this error stems from the printing industry which uses the CMYK method based on a mixture of  blue, red, yellow and black - in order to achieve the entire color spectrum on a white background. The CMYK method was developed, by the way, in order to prevent saturation of colors that were needed to get the black hue (reigning in printing), which would have caused over-wetting of the paper and great waste of paint. 

In the absence of a white background the electronics media, on the other hand, achieves white by total saturation of red, green and blue (the RGB method). 

As with other objects, visualization of buildings is, in any case, based on the connection of two-dimensional pictures to a three-dimensional reality. 

The use of a unified hue in general, and the color white in particular, as a means of blurring boundaries - both of the building's details and of the building relative to its surrounding - is perceived by architects as a tried way to create visual disorder. 

The white, in this case, has a considerable advantage, as it is governed by light and shade that create depth, and also as it symbolizes aspired content such as purity, cleanliness and simplicity. 

If we keep in mind that the definition of depth and distance are achieved by changes in light and shades, then every dissonance between the details and their hues will require a process of closing gaps, entailing - as mentioned - a greater involvement in the creation.