Simplicity or Unfinished Project?

In our building economics class a few weeks ago we watched a film of the process of the creation of Richard Meier's Getty Center. In the film he mentioned he had to compromise and not use all white material due to code unlike his other projects. This got me thinking about his projects and projects like the Moriyama House, which to me projects in all white seem unfinished.

So many architecture projects we see in class are these minimalist objects that look as through they have floated down from space and landed in a clearing. Yes they can be elegant and graceful but at the same time blank and boring. Its almost as if the architect creating these objects fell in love with his design after he modeled it with museum board and never allowed it to grow, never allowed it to have personality, never connect and have a conversation with its surroundings.

Compared to oil painting, when you start a painting often you will "sketch" your composition in very neutral colors such as black and white or burnt umber to make an underpainting. But an underpainting however beautiful it is, is not a finished painting with full depth, contrast and complexity. It is as modern architects have stopped with their design process at the underpainting. Its all white materials much like in a painting with pure white will only serve to wash out all the color from its surroundings and clash with its eventual inhabitants.