This article deals with the possibilities that color affords architectural composition, the strategies facilitated through color as a vocabulary of expression. It primarily focuses on the rules of grammar and syntax of color, and to a lesser degree on the semantic meanings, as this would entail multiple interpretations by the observer. Following an analysis of architectural color classification systems suggested by other authors, we reason that there are three main groups of plastic strategies. These are not mutually exclusive, but rather, complementary to each other: (I) color can influence the perception of the visual properties of architectural shapes; (II) color can describe the building and (III) color can be arranged for its intrinsic value. Each of these strategies deals with a different level of knowledge of the building, which requires both subconscious and conscious mechanisms of identification by the observer. These are the color strategies used by architects to express a particular compositional purpose. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 38, 238-250, 2013