I’ve been slowly picking my way through Anne Rorimer’s 1978 article on Blinky Palermo, which I think laid down the path for most Palermo understanding that followed, at least in English. And maybe there’s a metaphor for a discourse that goes to such clunky effort to not say 200cm or 80cm, much less know what it means physically:
The Stoffbilder are often square in format, though not exclusively, generally measuring 78 3/4 inches square. The standard width of fabric, which in Europe is usually 31 1/2 inches, determines the maximum possible width of each area of color.