Theories of Meaning in Architecture

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Theories of Meaning in Architecture
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Semiology the science of signs

• Signifier/Signified
• Context/Metaphor
• Langue/Parole
• from Charles Jencks Semiology and Architecture
  in Charles Jencks and George Baird, eds. Meaning
  in Architecture, 1969

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Signifier/SignifiedThe signifier is a
representation for an idea or thought which is
signified. In language, the sound would be the
signifier and the idea the signified, whereas in
architecture, the form would be the signifier and
the content the signified.
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Context/MetaphorThere are two basic ways a sign
achieves meaning - both through its relation to
all other signs in a context or chain, and
through the other signs for which it has become a
metaphor by association, or similarity. The
synonyms for context are chain, opposition,
syntagm, metonymy, contiguiity3 relations,
contrast for metaphor they are association,
connotation, similarity, correlation,
paradigmatic or systemic plane.
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The Semiological Triangle
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Langue/ParoleAll the signs in a society taken
together constitute the langue or total resource.
Each selection from this totality, each
individual act, is the parole. Thus the langue is
collective and not easily modifiable, whereas the
parole is individual and malleable.
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System and Syntagm from Roland Barthes, Elements
of Semiology,1964
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Sign systems, by Charles Jencks
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The Doric Order as System and Syntagm
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From Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1958
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Metaphor Personification of the Orders by John
Shute after Vitruvius
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John Simpson, The Queens Gallery, 2002
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Metonymy The Semiotics of the TasselAlan
Powers, Building Design, May 2002
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Pre-modern meaning
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Historians reconstruct meaning Erwin Panofsky
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Porta Palio, Verona and Rustic Gate from Serlio
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The European Gate from Peter Davidson and Alan
Powers, Five Gates for England, 1996
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Henri Labrouste,Bibliotheque Ste Geneviève,
Paris, 1848Elevation and section
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E. Gunnar Asplund, Stockholm City Library, 1930
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E. Gunnar Asplund, Mercury in Stockholm City
Library, 1930
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Everything in the world is a product of the
formula (function times economy)All art is
composition and therefore unfunctionalAll life
is function and therefore inartisticHannes Meyer
1928below Trade Union College, Burnau, by Meyer
Wittwer, 1930
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From Wiseman and Groves, Levi-Strauss for
Beginners, 1997
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Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture, 1966
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Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture, 1966
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From Venturi, Scott-Brown and Izenour, Learning
from Las Vegas, 1972
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Information/Herladry from Learning from Las
Vegas
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1977
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The symbolic death of Modern Architecture
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Killing the Father
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Gay Eclectic - semiological anaylsis
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Who lost the meaning of modernism? Above
Barcelona Pavilion, Mies van der Rohe, 1929.
Left drawing by architects, and right as
redrawn for The International Style, 1932Below
Tugendhat House, Brno, 1930
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From Terence Riley and Barry Bergdoll, eds. Mies
in Berlin, 2002
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Walter Benjamin The Arcades Project
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Playing with meaning and history Italo Calvino,
Invisible Cities, 1974
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Michael Graves, 1969
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Peter Eisenman House III for Robert Miller,
Lakeville, Connecticut, 1971
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Daniel Libeskind on the Jewish Museum
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Daniel Libeskind, Study for the Jewish Museum
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Void-voided void, The Jewish Museum
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The Jewish Museum, completed building, exterior
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Private Eye on Libeskind, 2002