The sense of Lima for yellow. Urban atmospheres and rhetorical arts at the time of the dictadura amarilla

Lima got a yellow skin, as the etymology of its name seems to suggest (1). The Peruvian capital shows an authentic obsession for this colour: the facades of the monuments and that of the main public buildings (such as the colonial-style Town Hall), the benches, the lighting poles, the buses, the curbs... Everything started from a strategy by Luis Castañeda Lossio, the (controversial) mayor of Lima for three terms (2003- 2018), who promoted a large urban redevelopment project based on the use of yellow as a highly distinctive means of communication (and propaganda). Initially the Municipality intervened by repainting in amarillo the narrow staircases of the peripheral heights slums. But later it moved from the harmless street furniture to the criticized coverage of all the murals in the city (even the ones painted by appreciated local artists). Gradually the Peruvian capital has changed skin and several parts of it have fallen under the axe of the "yellow dictatorship". Complying with its own meaning which, according to the psychology of colour, indicates vitality and fervour, the Yellow of Lima instils a particular urban atmosphere to a city that is rather anonymous. It becomes the great unifying mark that connotes the identity of the Peruvian capital and that democratically irons out the differences resulting from unresolved social tensions. (1) Archaeologist Pedro Villar Córdova states that the city of Lima takes its name from a yellow flower - typical of the region - called Limaq in the Quechua language.