Theories of Meaning in

Architecture

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

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.

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.

The Semiological Triangle

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.

System and

Syntagm from

Roland Barthes,

Elements of

Semiology,1964

Sign systems, by Charles Jencks

The Doric Order as System and Syntagm

From Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1958

Metaphor: Personification of the Orders by John Shute

after Vitruvius

John Simpson, The Queen’s Gallery, 2002

Metonymy: The Semiotics of the Tassel

Alan Powers, Building Design, May 2002

On one level, tassels are functional. Something is needed to deal with the

end of a cord or rope, to prevent the end from fraying, and a tassel is a

formalisation of a knot with loose threads hanging below it. Visually, then,

tassels are terminations, but their function is also to give weight to the end of

the cord so that it hangs and swings in a controllable manner, emphasising

the movement of the body. Figuratively, tassels mean a lot more than this.

The cords to which they attach may themselves be essentially ceremonial, but

in such cases not having a tassel would remove the cord from its symbolic

function and return it to being a mere rope. This column and others like it are

tassel-like appendages to the main function of a magazine. Tassels may be

analogous to sexual organs, specially male ones, projecting and swinging as

adjuncts to a larger entity. The ancients were more used to seeing these

tassels in everyday life than we are, even in our liberated times. Female

tassel dancers use them literally for a paradoxical mixture of emphasis and

concealment.

The new Queen!s Gallery at Buckingham Palace has some fine bronze

tassels hanging from the imitation cords that interlace its staircase. As

conventionalised classical ornaments, they are a metonym not only for the

architectural meaning of the gallery, but also for its position as a kind of richly-

wrought, attention-drawing tassel at the end of Buckingham Palace. The

project of enhancing the old gallery is tassel-like in its message of "thus far but

no further! in respect of opening up the palace to public view. We are seeing

some of the best bits, on condition that the cord itself does not unravel.

The gallery emphasises the glamour of royalty, drawing us near to its

nourishing and protective breast. The merchandise in the shop draws us

even more intimately into a shared joke, with corgi-themed toys, dog-leads

with crowns and other innocent fun. Like the accoutrements of military dress

uniforms, which include epaulettes (shoulder tassels) and further tassel-work

about the ceremonial sword, the gallery fits into a familiar symbolic system

through which royalty has always been understood. There would be no more

point in having an ornament-free Queen!s Gallery than there would be in

having a non-cermonial monarchy, and for this reason alone, John Simpson!s

design deserves to be hailed as a masterpiece of integrated semiotics, as well

as being a clever piece of planning, an assembly of highly skilled

craftsmanship and an agreeable place in which to view fine works of art.

Of course, the lure that the tassel has for some is for others a signal for

repulsion, very probably as a result of puritanism, but they might consider the

nature of the emotions they are experiencing. Monarchy has always operated

through theatricality, even to the point of self-parody, and it is a mistake to

attribute a love of tassel-work to a condition of decadence. It is of the

essence of the thing, and carries attributes of priestly function, an area in

which the language of textiles has always been important. Both priest and

king are Dionysian by nature and function, not Apollonian, and that means

tassels, both literal and figurative.

The one thing monarchy cannot afford to be is normal, although it may affect

the emotions in almost any other way. Republics can have their tassels too,

but the Queen!s Gallery is clever because it responds to a quintessential

tassel moment, when a sense of carnivalesque exaggeration is appropriate,

something that classical revival architecture in the twentieth century too often

lacked. The effect is enhanced by the miniaturisation of scale, for while

speaking in the traditional language of ceremonial uniform, it creates a perfect

illusion that the monarchy is both getting smaller and coming closer to us.

Pre-modern meaning

Historians reconstruct meaning: Erwin Panofsky

Porta Palio, Verona and

Rustic Gate from Serlio

The European Gate from Peter Davidson and Alan

Powers, Five Gates for England, 1996

Henri Labrouste,

Bibliotheque Ste

Geneviève, Paris,

1848

Elevation and

section

E. Gunnar Asplund, Stockholm City Library, 1930

E. Gunnar Asplund, Mercury in Stockholm City Library,

1930

Everything in the world is a product of the formula

(function times economy)

All art is composition and therefore unfunctional

All life is function and therefore inartistic

Hannes Meyer 1928below: Trade Union College, Burnau, by Meyer & Wittwer, 1930

From Wiseman and Groves, Levi-Strauss for Beginners, 1997

Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966

Robert Venturi,

Complexity and

Contradiction in

Architecture, 1966

From Venturi, Scott-Brown and Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, 1972

‘Information/Heraldry’ from Learning from Las Vegas

1977

Pruitt-Igoe: The symbolic death of

Modern Architecture

Jencks on Mies van der Rohe: ‘Killing the Father’

‘Gay Eclectic’ - semiological anaylsis

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, 1932

Below: Tugendhat House, Brno, 1930

From Terence Riley and Barry

Bergdoll, eds. Mies in Berlin, 2002

Walter Benjamin ‘The Arcades Project’

History as a search for hidden meanings

Playing with meaning and history: Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1974

Modern architecture reprocessed as formal information:

Michael Graves, Benacerraf House addition, 1969

Formal content: Peter Eisenman House III for Robert Miller, Lakeville,

Connecticut, 1971

Narrative restored: Daniel Libeskind on the Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind, Study for the Jewish Museum

‘Void-voided void’, The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum, completed building, exterior

Narratived trivialised? Private Eye on Libeskind, 2002