MILAN, Italy - (KRT) - The count stands at 26, or something like that.

Although Giovannella Formica and Beppe Caturegli have never actually tallied the number of colors on the walls of their modestly sized apartment, "somebody once did." They just don't remember exactly who, what and why.

"We don't know because we don't care," explains Caturegli, straight-faced and not meaning to be flip. "We don't ask ourselves `What color are we painting?' We ask ourselves, `What color is this (wall)'" - as if the blank wall wanted to be a certain color and they were simply unleashing its yearning.

Only in Italy could walls and architects be so passionate.

Milan may be a long way to go for a color story, but let's face it. The Italians have a couple of centuries on Americans in the inspired-walls department.

And so, to celebrate this season of color - when Mother Nature brushes all sorts of exuberance - we offer a picture story on the possibilities of unbridled paint. Not a textbook of how-to's, but a look at one couple's journey into a world where walls speak to them, and color gives them the "simple richness" that they desire in their lives and interiors.

Caturegli and Formica - husband and wife, architects and business partners - live in Milan's artsy Brera district. Their home is a 1,400-square-foot apartment that they bought nearly a decade ago and have fiddled with considerably.

They deconstructed - turning three bedrooms into one, plus a library and an extra-large living/dining combination.

And they resculpted - playing with volumes and proportions as if space were clay. Ceilings were raised and lowered. Walls moved and removed. New hallways were chiseled, born through square-shouldered portals in some places and soaring archways in others, the perfect miscompanions in an apartment that Caturegli and Formica like to think of as beautifully imperfect. A metaphor for life.

Which is why they did not do a few other things too.

They did not tear out the old, plastic laminate kitchen. "We like to keep something of the old house, some of the mistakes," says Formica.

Nor did they tear up the then-new parquet floor even though parquet is not their thing. "We call it ecological (of us)."

Nor did they tear into all of the big white tiles (they merely edited) that paved nearly every surface in the main bathroom. "We hate those tiles. So we used them," says Caturegli, again philosophic and confusing.

To these two, bad can be good. Yin needs a yang. A home needs to breathe, to sing, to cry, to feel.

And with that, we move to the main topic of color - a topic that they prefer to leave unprobed, in spite of their renown as some of the best colorists working in Milan today.

"In every building, there is a different story," says Formica, who trained as a dancer before studying buildings and now settles into one of their mismatched dining chairs as she attempts the metaphysical leap between the 26 colors on their walls and the "why" of it all.

"And generally, colors are almost the last thing we think about in a project," she goes on, noting that, as architects, their primary role is to define space. "You collect information (about the natural light that enters the building - a critical piece of information) from the very first moment. But you have to wait till the very last moment when you know the proportions and understand the volumes. And at the end, the color is (already) there, no? You have to just read it."

In other words, they don't have explanations - other than their ability to divine color from daylight.

But what they do have are ideas.

And they have discretion. None of their 26 colors (among them a watery teal, sunny yellow and burnt orange) screams, although the architects are masters at layering and superimposing and drenching color. And that can have a powerful outcome.

The living room is a good starting point.

A pair of giant pale rose-colored rectangles alight from the wall behind the sofa (a Le Corbusier, classic modern design). The rectangles don't match each other in size or match anything else in the room, for that matter. But they awaken the space, sending a blush over these walls of warm white. And inside one of them hangs a single, small piece of framed art - as if it were a jewel, anchored in a fancy rose-colored box.

But the suggestion that they painted said rectangles to function in some way (and please don't use the word "decoration") makes Caturegli and Formica bristle. It was the wall that needed "to have a big vibration," says Caturegli. It is we who feel the stir.

Moving on to the broad wall on the far side of the living room, which is actually the dining portion of the space, they lavished it with giallo cappuccino (an ancient Italian color; a robust terra cotta) and hung nothing from it.

Again, no explanations. But the effect is discernible. The wall becomes towering, sheltering architecture in a way that a white wall could never be. And the terra color feels like a hearth, warming the white rays pouring in from the front windows.

In the main bathroom, they let bright orange and equally hot pink play together on the same walls, under the shimmer of a crystal chandelier. It is warm and happy in here.

Says Caturegli: "It's like when you were a small girl. Your mother gives you a skirt (to wear) that is pink. And then you come out with a shirt that is orange and (your mother) says, `No, no, orange and pink - they don't go together. ..."

Formica: "This is not true."

Caturegli: "The colors do match. They say one thing or another thing. They say `I'm calm. I'm crazy. I'm fed up. I'm bored.' They have a (common) effect."

In the kitchen, the effect is more "I'm quiet. I'm still waters that run deep." In here, they went tonal. They painted the top half of the walls in a light mint green color with a matte finish. The bottom part of the walls is in the same color, except glossy. You feel there is something going on before the eye figures it out.

Throughout the apartment, the walls rustle with energy.

Behind an orange curtain-cum-door (leading to the private quarters) is a dressing room blanketed - walls and ceilings - in orange chrome. One step in and you are transported to a tiny, pulsating world.

And in the master bedroom just beyond this space, the feeling goes quiet. The bottom (roughly) one-third of all the walls is grounded in "burnt terra de Siena." But the top portion is lighter than air, changing almost mystically from a vague mint green to a light, light blue, from one wall to the next. The colors are just a whisper different. And again, the eye does a double take to catch what the sixth sense already knows.

"I was explaining, we don't collect objects," says Formica. And yes, this does relate to their use of color in their home.

"For me, it's easier and faster to be light. ... I am not saying that I am not enthusiastic, for example, for art or sculpture. But there is a gap (between) my appreciation (for these things) and the need to possess them."

Color fills in the voids. It gives them "a simple richness, a poor richness," explains Formica, that energizes their souls without cluttering the house.

It is worth noting that the architects are also nomads.

(And for those who study international design, it is also worth noting that they worked for Italian architect Ettore Sottsass - the master of color and unconvention - in the 1980s during his Memphis period of spirited industrial design. They were doing architecture, though, not products. But certainly, the 85-year-old Sottsass has influenced their work.)

They like to be someplace else. Like Senegal or India, where they lived off and on over 10 years doing research and architecture, including the restoration of a villa in Madras.

And so for them, home is by default - a place where they land and a place where they hope to "not be too sad" because they are not abroad, immersed in a foreign culture.

The colors keep them intrigued.

"We have a word in Italian - luogo. It means `place,'" explains Caturegli, adding that it means more "the spirit of the place."

He goes on: "An intense place - luogo - is where you feel like `I'm here. But am I really sure I'm here?' It's a place that gives you a push to a higher feeling, a higher level of consciousness."

These walls - their luogo - gives that push.

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© 2002, Chicago Tribune.

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