This paper casts a net across spaces that are designed to be bland and identity-less. It posits that white is more than just a colour in design and that it is appropriated by organizations to spread sameness across public spaces. In this way, the article draws upon Foucauldian theories of power and organizational aesthetics in an effort to show that people become caught up in an institutionalization of space. White spaces become infused with an energy that is also derived from plain surfaces and which then offers up an illusion of spatial order. The article uses examples of the church, the parliament building, the prison, the hospital and the university to discuss ways in which whiteness transcends the limits of temporal colour and enters the psyche as an agent of power in the control of spaces and subjects.