Today on Monday Mysteries we examine the question of why so few of the half-timber houses in Tübingen have wood that is painted yellow.

Although many of the half-timber houses in town have been painted different colors, most are either pastel shades:

Painted houses along the Neckar River, Tübingen

… or perhaps deep reds:

Half-timber style next to building that’s been renovated with all stucco

Our apartment building is painted a very pastel cream/yellow:

Our apartment building, built in 1513, renovated in 2011

But very few of the old buildings are painted a certain type of deep yellow ochre color. We saw this shade a couple of weeks ago on that building that had the fancy sundial, actually:

West facing sundial, Tübingen

As it turns out, perhaps the best way to refer to this color would be “gold”, since in many ways it represented the idea of money in Tübingen back in the middle ages.  You see, it could only be used by the really wealthy folks in town. Folks like the rulers who lived in the Schloß Hohentübingen, the castle here in Tübingen: the interior courtyard has walls decorated with this ochre color:

You may recall that the sundial building (above) was owned by the church,  which was, of course, also rich enough to use this yellow color.

Now, you might also be wondering why the wood on these buildings were painted at all. According to a man who took my “A Photography Walk Around Tübingen” photo workshop last summer, the paint was thought to retard fires, even back then. So, if the wooden house caught fire — a definite problem with this building type — a painted building was thought to burn slowly, if it all.

I don’t know if that’s really why so many of the houses survived, since not all of the houses were necessarily painted. But the renovations they did here in the old city center 20-30 years ago did restore colorful paint to most of the buildings.  I don’t think there is any current level of prestige attached to any of the colors, although for my money, I like the deep red the best. Actually, I like having all the different colors on the buildings, as it  makes for a colorful scene as you walk around town.

But that’s just my two cents. Ochre was the real color of money, at least 500 years ago in Tübingen.