BUILT ENVIRONMENT &

SPATIAL CULTURE
Lecture 10,
 PROCESSES OF MEANING-MAKING

• Semiotics or semiology, is the study of signs and symbols. It is the study of how
meaning is created, not what it is. Signs are the smallest unit of meaning. They
convey a direct and simple meaning. A sign is anything that stands for something
else. A sign represents something—an idea, an experience, a feeling, an object, etc.
Words as ordinarily used are signs in this sense. The object referred to by a sign
does not need to be present for the meaning of the sign to be understood. Context
helps define the specific meaning of a sign.

• Symbols are signs which convey complex meanings, at times more than one
meaning. They are universal in nature. They heighten the significance of the image.

• Something that has cultural significance and the capacity to inspire and substantiate
a collective response
 Symbolic buildings

• Egyptian Pyramids are the symbol of the power of kings and pharaohs of ancient Egypt. They
represent the descending rays of the sun.
• The Parthenon is the symbol of ancient Greece and democracy
• The Taj Mahal became the symbol of beauty and enduring love
• The Empire State building is the symbol of New York and of achievement, strength and efficiency
• Sydney Opera House is the symbol of modern Australia and late modern architecture.

• The dome symbolizes the vault of heaven, the cosmos, or the sky
• The square represents the pure, rational, no preferred direction, stability
• The triangle symbolizes the fire, and the communication between earth (the material) and heaven
(the spiritual).

• Skyscrapers represent financial success and leadership.

• Domes in public buildings represent power.
• Irregular forms represent dynamism, motion, informality.
• Glass walls represent modernism, transparency.
 Structural Linguistics
Ferdinand de Saussure (November 26, 1857 - February
22, 1913) was a Swiss linguist, considered by many to
be the father of structural linguistics. Every sign is made
up of two components: the signifier (the sound-image)
and the signified (concept).
The link between the sign and the referent is arbitrary.
Thus meaning can only be studied systemically and
synchronically
• Saussure distinguished between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’,
two words in French whose meaning are combined in
the English word ‘language’
• language = langue + parole
• langue, the rules of sign system (which might be
grammar)
• parole, the articulation of signs (for
example, speech or writing),
At one level you can see why such a theory of
linguistics would appeal to those who were interested in
issues of culture
– If the relation between a sign and its referent was
not self-evident, then thus relation was man-made,
i.e. cultural and socially produced
• Saussure divides the sign into its two aspects. First there’s the bit that you can
see or hear.
• So if you can see, hear, touch, taste or smell it you can probably interpret it and
it is likely to have some meaning for you.
• Audible and visible signs have priority for Saussure because they are the types
of sign that make up most of our known languages.
• Such signs are called "verbal" signs (from the Latin verba meaning "word"). The
sensible part of a verbal sign (the part accessible to the senses) is the part you
see or hear. This is its signifier. You can understand this much by looking at a
word you don’t understand--a word from a language you don’t know, perhaps.
All you get is its signifier.
• The signified is what these visible/audible aspects mean to us. Now we know
very well that some marks mean very different things to different people at
different times. The word "cat" in my example means "ginger monster" to me
but to my neighbour it means cuddly old much maligned softy who is only
innocently going about its business. The signified is thus always something of
an interpretation that is added to the signifier.
 functionalism
In the early years of the 20th century, Chicago architect Louis Sullivan popularized the
phrase 'form follows function' to capture his belief that a building's size, massing,
spatial grammar and other characteristics should be driven solely by the function of
the building.

The implication is that if the functional aspects are satisfied, architectural beauty
would naturally and necessarily follow.

RATIONALISM Louis Sullivan

a lifeless expression of architecture and urban planning that ignored the identity of the Father of Modern
inhabitants and urban forms. Architecture

STRUCTURALIST FORM
in which the users and the form react to, and play on each other

it is this capacity to absorb, carry and convey significance that defines what form can
bring about in the users - and conversely - what the users can bring about in the form.

Aim of Structurist Form: to form the material in such a way that - as well as
answering to the function in the narrower sense - it will be suitable for more purposes.
And thus, it will be able to play as many roles as possible in the service of the various,
individual users, - so that everyone will then be able to react to it for himself,
interpreting it in his own way, annexing it to his familiar environment, to which it will
then make a contribution.
 Metaphor
• Metaphor is use of an image for something it does not literally denote.
• Most of us think of a metaphor as a device used in songs or poems only, and that it has nothing to do
with our everyday life. In fact, all of us in our routine life speak, write and think in metaphors. We cannot
avoid them. Metaphors are sometimes constructed through our common language.
• Example: Calling a person a “night owl” or an “early bird”.
• Architecture uses the language of metaphors- Lotus temple like lotus, glass pavilion is a water drop
• A metaphor can often create novel features in an object or a situation.
• Metaphors increase our perception of reality by shattering our sense of reality, and that reality goes
through phases of metamorphosis through metaphors.
• It is ideal to reach a new design reality never before having existed by the end of the design process.
Structuralism
• Structuralism is a theoretical paradigm that emphasizes that elements of culture must be understood in
terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or "structure."

• In other words, Structuralism posits that discrete cultural elements are not explanatory in and of
themselves, but rather form part of a meaningful system and are best understood with respect to their
location within (and relationship to) the structure as a whole.

• One of the most prominent thinkers associated with structuralism was anthropologist Claude Lévi-
Strauss
• Claude Lévi-Strauss (28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) French structural
anthropologist and ethnologist
 “visual metaphor”

Designers’ creative ideas are usually in the form of objects or

images in their minds, and they cannot be easily verbalized.

Architects apply verbal and conceptual metaphors into visual

images and by using different interpretations transform them
into visual images for buildings.

It has potential to create more sophisticated architectural

designs because a concrete graphic image of an abstract concept
changes from one architect to another and varies even according
to different perspectives of the same architect at different times.

Every image appearing as a result of this process would be

superposed on previous images. Thus imagination would be
activated and new images would emerge.
 Stata Center
(Home to MIT’s computer
scientists and electrical
engineers)
Frank Gehry

look unfinished

About to collapse

Columns tilt at scary angles

Walls teeter, swerve, and collide

in random curves and angles.

Materials change wherever you

look

“a metaphor for the freedom, daring,

and creativity of the research that’s
supposed to occur inside it.”
The Sydney Opera House,
by Jorn Utzon,
1957

represent the sails on the

tall sailing ships that
brought so many of the
ancestors of the Anglo
residents of modern day
Australian to the island
 Myth
Beneath the immense heterogeneity of myths were certain constant universal structures, to which
any particular myth could be reduced.
Myths were a kind of language: they could be broken down into individual units ('mythemes') which like
the basic sound units of language phonemes acquired meaning only when combined together in
particular ways. The basic premise of Levi-Strauss' "The Structural Study of Myth" is that myth is like
language, or rather is language.
Myth is not only conveyed by language, it also functions like language in the manner described by
Saussure
Ritual
• Lévi-Strauss viewed myth and ritual as complementary symbol systems, one verbal, one non-verbal.
Lévi-Strauss was not concerned to develop a theory of ritual but was influential to later scholars of
ritual such as Mary Douglas and Edmund Leach. According to Mary Douglas, we need ‘framing ‘ in our
lives. In other words, human beings need rituals of one kind and another to give focus to our
experience. Without rituals certain types of experience would not be possible.

• Douglas points out how the days of the week create an experience of time that would not be possible
if we did not have them. Not only do the days have their own particular characteristics for us, but also
their meaning for us is partly a matter of their position in the sequence. Thus Sunday is the day of rest
for us, but it also has a significance relative to Monday. Douglas sees regular rituals generally as
helping shape our experience of life. Rituals are important for the formation of identity on cultural,
social and personal levels.

• Psychologically speaking, the value of ritual lies in the degree to which it contributes to strengthening
a person’s sense of identity,