INTRODUCTION

The study of architectonic meaningfulness is a mare’s nest of conflicting opinion, and the student of the built environment is normally at a loss to construct a coherent and holistic picture of the situation. Generations of studies have, if anything, one thing in common—an agreement that the situation is extraordinarily complex. There are evidently so many senses in which architectonic formations can be said to signify that the task of modelling this complexity normally succumbs either to idiosyncratic intuitionism or to overly rigid and simplistic categorization.¹

In this chapter we will not attempt to classify all the possible ways in which architectonic formations signify. While the system of classification proposed here is largely unique, and to a certain extent cross-cuts a number of traditional ways of looking at the situation, it will not seek to model all of the facets of architectonic meaning. Instead, we shall offer a provisional classification whose purpose is to capture its most salient facets, which may serve as a template for future work.

In a general sense, every aspect of architectonic formation is meaningful in some sense. The various sign-types in the hierarchy of signs each carry their own kinds of meaningfulness: each functions in a particular way. Thus, the bundles of copresent distinctive features, and the sets of systemic units, are meaningful in different ways from directly-significative formations such as cells and matrices, as our analyses in the previous chapter have illustrated.

Architectonic significance is markedly different from linguistic meaning in part because of striking differences induced in each code by the nature of its signing medium and that medium’s relative permanence. With regard to the first aspect, there is, as we have noted before, a marked difference between the two codes: the medium of the linguistic system is relatively homogeneous and narrowly circumscribed compared to the architectonic medium—which is potentially coterminous with the range of the material resources of the biosphere, including our own and other human bodies.

Various aspects of the linguistic signalling medium provide information, in a given speech act, about the identity of the speaker semi-independently of the context of the message itself. Perceptually, we are accustomed to recognize a given speaker by his voice-quality, idiosyncrasies of syntax, characteristic vocabulary, and so forth.

But there is a sense in which the architectonic correlate of the directly significative or sense- determinative aspect of acoustic signals is characteristically richer than its linguistic counterpart. This richness is a concomitant of the many aspects of architectonic materialization, including coloration, texture, material size, the modular patterning of materials, etc. In the built environment, the material organization of architectonic formations comprises a multidimensional system in its own right, which may be as fully complex as the formal system itself.

It is necessary to distinguish the formal structure^a of an architectonic code from its material structure^a. While materialization serves a systemic function in the realization of formal structure, it is also a semi-autonomous system in its own right, with its own domains of meaningfulness as specified by particular corpora.

A good example of the latter is the symbolic use of certain materials in a built environment, as noted by M. Wallis:²

In the first example, the significative use of coloration is semi-autonomous of the actual materials used in construction of the ziggurat, and óf the geometric properties of the formal structure,⁴ as well as of the actual metric sizes of the components. In the second example, what is principally significative is the formal structure in question (irrespective of the materials, actual size, coloration and texture, etc.).

In the latter case, the dome may have been painted blue with stars on it (painted gold), or black, or may have been painted half-black and half light-blue, and any manner of astrological figures may have been painted within the dome, to signify stellar constellations.

Architectural history is replete with countless examples of this kind of referential symbolism, and the variations among such possible situations is enormous. What is important for our purposes here is the evident semi-autonomy of the domains of signification alluded to—that of formal structure and that of materialization.

But the situation is more complex than that pictured here, for even though we are evidently dealing with the meaningfulness of two major components of architectonic formation, a more salient distinction in terms of meaningfulness cuts across both formal structure and material organization.

In the first example above, the geometric configuration of the ziggurat—its formal structure of masses and volumes—is directly significant with respect to a totality of religious and ritual associations. The meaningfulness of the ziggurat is an aggregate of both formal and material factors—i.e., both the geometric formation itself (semi-autonomously of size, materials used in construction, the texturing of materials, and so forth) as well as its physical realization with respect to specific and conventional materials, colors, sizes relative to other formations, etc.).

The significance of an architectonic formation is a composite of a variety of formative features drawn from various levels of systemic organization. A given formative feature may have a dual or multiple signification, depending upon our perspective on the totality of the formation. Thus the ceiling of a structure is simultaneously meaningful systemically, as a component in the formal definition of a space-cell, and may also be significant in a given corpus sematectonically, as in the case where the ceiling of a house or temple is intended to symbolize the heavens (in contrast to the walls, which may symbolize the four cardinal directions of the horizon, and in contrast to the floor—paved or not—which may symbolize the earth, the underworld, and so forth).

But sematectonic significance cross-cuts both formal and material structure, for not only may a ceiling be directly-significant with respect to its geometric configuration and position relative to other forms, the materiality of that form’s realization may also be directly or sematectonically significant—through the use of special materials, colors, textures, sizes, etc.

Meaningfulness, in other words, is a property of an architectonic code at all levels of its organization, and in a very real sense almost anything perceptually-palpable may be employed significantly, from subtle variations in color, texture and lighting to the geometric configurations of a formation, including not only the shapes of objects themselves (relative to other shapes), but also their relative placements. In the latter case, we may recall the organization of the Minoan hall system as comprising both certain kinds of space-cells as well as their relative arrangements as syntactic matrices. In our analysis of the hall system we saw that the same cellular formations occurring separately and non-contiguously have different meanings and functions. Moreover, the hall system as a whole was characteristically situated relative to other cell-aggregates in a house.⁵

It need not be stressed that the domains of significance are chiefly conventional and corpus-specific, so that given aspects of formal and material organization will be differently meaningful in different corpora or systems. It remains unclear to what extent we are justified at this stage in the development of architectonic analysis to speak confidently of universal domains of signification, even though such domains may be claimed to exist.⁶

In the present chapter we will examine the question of architectonic meaning through a consideration of formal and material organization as well as systemic and sematectonic significance. But the problem of material organization will itself be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. Our chief concern in what follows here will be with the question of architectonic significance with respect to formal organization, and in particular the question of architectonic function^a, a subject which has had a long history of misunderstanding in the received literature. As we shall see, the semiotic nature of the built environment is saliently through a consideration of the multifunctional nature of the architectonic formation. This property of the architectonic system illuminates a number of important correlative features with other human sign-systems.

In addressing the question of architectonic meaning, any analysis will be most productive when the essential and fundamental difference between meaning and reference is clearly borne in mind. Meaning is the specification of an ordered trace of relationships which a given sign bears to other signs within the same code, whereas reference is not an indexical relationship which a given sign bears to formations outside of semiotic systems, toward some fictive ‘real’ world, but rather involves cross-modal associative implications. In verbal language, for example, ‘shifters’ are cross-modally indexical with respect to significative formations in a somatotopic modality (i.e., the relative placements and perspectival positionings of addressers and addressees in communicative events). In an identical fashion, the ‘meaning’ of a given architectonic construct is internal to its own code whereas its ‘reference’ may implicate a culturally-copresent set of texts, doctrines or beliefs, which themselves comprise significative formations in their own right in adjacent codes. And the relationships among all these may be metonymie or indexical, as well as metaphoric (i.e., indexical and ‘iconic’). (For a further discussion of this problem, see the Appendix below.)

ARCHITECTONIC MULTIFUNCTIONALITY

A picture of the organization of architectonic functionality is often misconstrued with a classification of architectonic types (e.g., residential, industrial, religious, governmental, educational, and so forth). To be sure, at a given place and time, a corpus will manifest a characteristic typology of formations, each of which is conventionally (and to some extent temporarily) associated with certain usages. Not only are given usages defined differently from culture to culture, so also are the ranges of formal types. There can be no universal ‘house’ type because the notion of dwelling is a specific function of the definitions of a given society.⁷ It is only the systemic sum of all architectonic types at a given place and time which characterizes the typological associations of individual formations.

In other words, the association between a formation and its referents in a given architectonic system is a conventional one. ‘Homonymous’ formations in two corpora only accidentally (if at all) suggest associations with exactly equivalent semantic domains. Both the identity and meaningfulness of architectonic formations are systemically-defined with relation to an ordered network of conventional associations, and conventional formations. These two domains or networks, moreover, behave semi-autonomously over time, each displaying a half-life of its own. Even though in formation they may bear a striking resemblance to each other, a basilica in 100 B.C. and one in 100 A.D. carry sharply differing associations with respect to usage (civic meeting hall vs. Christian church).

Formational typology provides us with a picture of the usages to which formations are put (i.e., with which they are associable) at a given time in a specific corpus—in other words, the ranges of their referential associations, their immediate ‘purposes’ or their contextual ‘utility.’ It need not, in addition, be stressed that ‘form’ does not ‘follow’ ‘function’ (in the sense of usage) any more than ‘function follows form,’ except in a temporary, provisional, conventional, and corpus-specific sense, bearing in mind that ‘follows’ cannot mean ‘is determined by,’ in any absolute sense. Within any culture there are ranges of alternative realization to any given ‘function’, whether that be time-telling, dwelling, making garments, or preparing food.

Clearly, the functionality of architectonic systems is a very complex matter, made superficially more complicated by a long history of the issue of ‘functionalism’ expounded by art historians and others—a subject today more of peripheral sociological import rather than of strictly architectonic interest.

It will be evident that architectonic formations are inherently multifunctional in nature, and that referential association or intended (and effective) usage is but one dimension of architectonic function. An architectonic object may be said to function referentially^a through an orientation upon the contextual associations or usages which a corpus prescribes.

But such a function necessarily coexists with other functions which suggest differing orientations upon various components of the processes of architectonic semiosis. For example, the aesthetic^a function of a formation may be dominant—in other words, there may be manifest a self-conscious orientation upon the formation itself as a transmitted sign or message. As with the referential functions of an object, the aesthetic function is similarly corpus-specific with respect to the aesthetic conventions of a society at a given time: a certain modular homogeneity may be manifest, wherein the component formations of an architectonic object are proportionally graded with respect to each other according to a conventional canon of ‘harmonic’ numerical ratios.

Yet proportional harmonics (or chromatic or textural harmonics) is only one of a wide variety of means, and each corpus at a given time and place will reveal its own version(s) of what it considers appropriately aesthetic.

While the aesthetic function may manifest itself in components less charged with referential association (for example color), it is not necessarily the case that the function is associated with one or another formational type: no one formational type is inherently more prone to manifest a dominance of the aesthetic function, even if it is the case that for a given corpus at a given time and place, the aesthetic function may be dominant (as with cathedrals or private dwellings, etc.). There is, moreover, no clear boundary between structures with an aesthetic function predominant and those with which it may play a lesser role.

Another function manifest by architectonic formations is that of an orientation upon the code itself of which it is a realization. This is normally realized architectonically through historical reference, as when a formation consciously alludes to a set of stylistic characterizations of non-currently-dominant formations.

Historical allusion takes many forms in architectonic systems, from pedantic recreations of famous landmarks, such as a copy of a classical temple (which may, however, manifest for its referential context non-historical usages, such as a stock exchange, etc.) to formations whose outer facade only simulates an historical prototype (as where a multistoreyed trolley-barn has a facade articulated like a Renaissance palazzo or an Ostian apartment house). The allusion, moreover, may also be cross-systemic, as where a restaurant in a contemporary western city is articulated to represent a Polynesian hut.

Such a function, which we may term meta-architectonic^a, since in the broadest sense it calls into conscious attention an architectonic code itself, coexists with the aforementioned functions to a greater or lesser degree of dominance. A formation may function meta-architectonically to a very minimal degree, wherein allusory reference is confined to details of material articulation such as baseboard moldings, or maximally, as in the case where a house in Wisconsin purports to be a Spanish hacienda. Allusory reference may also be quite subtle, as where the proportions of a contemporary villa simulate the modular proportional scheme of famous historical prototypes (e.g., certain Renaissance palazzi—which themselves may simulate the modular organization of a Roman building simulating a Greek temple, etc.): the discussions by Colin Rowe in his Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (1976) are especially illustrative in this regard. The picture of architectonic function is clearly broader than the range of referential uses alone, and it would appear to be the case that architectonic formations may manifest a variety of dimensions or orientations upon the various aspects of architectonic semiosis itself.

In addition to its referential, aesthetic and allusory functions, architectonic objects also function territorially^a by staging behavioral routines or episodes, framing interpersonal interactions, and dividing, structuring, delimiting, or zoning an environment. While it establishes a referential context of usages, for example, the organization of a neighborhood may be such as to define a common focus (around a small plaza, or on both sides of a certain portion of a boulevard), a common ground for groups of people with certain social, ethnic, economic or religious ties. To an outsider, the neighborhood or quarter may be read merely as a transition from one part of a city to another, but for the insider these same formations articulate a social topology.

The territorial or ‘phatic’^a function is realized in many different ways in different corpora, and moreover changes over time and place within a large corpus. In some cases, the presence of an object may be predominantly phatic or territorial—as with a wall or a grown hedge, even a church in a neighborhood.⁸ But these same objects reveal coexistent aesthetic, referential and allusory dimensions: the particular hierarchy of dominance or strength of one dimension over another or others may vary from one formation in a corpus to another.

Mukařovský correctly saw architecture as an example par excellence of a multifunctional system, differing from other instrumentalities of human activity as complex as machines by being conventionally connected to any kind of activity and designed to serve as a spatial milieu for the most varied behavior:

Architecture, he says, organizes space with respect to man in his entirety, that is, with respect to all the physical or mental activities of which he is capable.

He goes on to delimit what he terms five functional horizons of architecture.¹⁰ A building’s function is determined by (1) an immediate purpose (corresponding broadly to our referential usage-context); by (2) an historical purpose, wherein functionality is “governed not only by an immediate practical consideration but also by a fixed canon (or set of norms) for this kind of structure and its previous development.”¹¹ This corresponds to the meta-architectonic or allusory and code-oriented functional dimensions.

A building manifests a functional horizon created, thirdly, by “the organization of the collective to which the client and architect belong,”¹² corresponding generally to the phatic-territorial function discussed above, “in accordance with the organization of society, the available economic and material possibilities, and so forth.”

A fourth functional horizon is the aesthetic, wherein, when this is in dominance, it “renders the thing itself as the purpose.”¹³ He would concur with our view that there is not an object-type which necessarily has to be its vehicle, rightly seeing the aesthetic function as one of the semiotic functions.

But it is in the area of his fifth architectonic function, what he terms the individual functional horizon, where his picture of functionality becomes, from our point of view, somewhat ambiguous. He states, correctly, that “an individual can obviously deviate from everything which has been set as a norm by the preceding horizons.”¹⁴ He sees this as a violation of functionality deriving from the decision of an individual, whether client or architect.

There exist, however, a number of significant differences between the two types of “violation.” The situation may be clarified by considering the nature of designer-builder-architect and the person(s) ‘addressed’ by the processes of architectonic semiosis or transmission vis-à-vis apparently similar components in verbal semiosis.

In speaking of architectonic function, we have been considering sets of contrastive associations among, and orientations upon, the various components of a transmission. The process of architectonic transmission comprises several different components which recall—but are evidently not exactly coterminous with—the components of a verbal message.

In the case of the latter, the components include a speaker, the transmitter of a message, and a listener or receiver of the message, in addition to the transmission itself as a formation. In a linguistic system, the speaker himself will produce the formation with the instrumentality of his own speech organs. In an architectonic system, there may be a personal distinction between what are traditionally referred to as a designer and a builder (or builders). In other words, the initiator of an architectonic transmission may not in fact ‘construct’ that transmission, but may instead present to others for realization a simulative model or diagram of the intended transmission. Those ‘others’ may include the ‘client’ himself.

On the other side, the intended receiver of the transmission may be the transmitter himself (as may be the case in verbal language) or one or more others. Once ‘transmitted’, an architectonic formation continues to broadcast widely. Moreover, the personal identity of the receivers is not necessarily constant, and generations of individuals may continue to ‘receive’ an archaic transmission, as we have suggested above in connection with the question of relative permanence of signalling.

Furthermore, the various referential associations of a given formation may change over time, whether or not the receiver(s) of a transmission materially alter the construct, so that it is often the case that architectonic formations become increasingly polysemous^a, or semantically denser, over time. Even ruins have a romance.

In this regard, seen from the perspective of a settlement itself, a corpus will reveal layered strata of associations of greater or lesser depth. Formations in a built environment manifest different relative ages, histories of evolution, and ranges of association, much like lexico-grammatical components of a linguistic system. Of course the diachrony isn’t necessarily in the direction of polysemous density; categories also merge, simplify and coalesce over time. Certain distinctions may become mute or irrelevant.

This situation is in large part an artifact of the relative permanence of some architectonic signs, which remain in the reified memory store of a society to interact with and influence later formations. This is somewhat analogous to a situation in linguistic systems wherein sets of recorded speech acts will interact with the daily speech of later generations, although strictly speaking the analogy also overlaps with another situation manifest in architectonic evolution in certain corpora wherein records of earlier designs (old plans, models, even verbal texts of specifications) may influence current practice.¹⁵

Another corollary of this situation is that architectonic evolution is in no way linear or logical in se, but is (as with any semiotic system in its diachrony) a function of the complexly-integrated evolution of a culture itself, in its totality.¹⁶

Hence the nature of the architectonic system induces code-specific types of relationships between what in a linguistic frame might be called ‘addresser’ and ‘addressee’. In the former code, the ‘speaker-hearer’ of linguistics exists, as a relationship in normal semiosis, as but one of a complex set of possible relationships. But such complexities also exist in verbal semiosis, although they are not as characteristically well delineated as the simpler, idealized transmission state.¹⁷

In the architectonic code, the original ‘generator’ of a formation may be a person or persons who ‘design’ a formation who may also (but need not) ‘construct’ that formation for a ‘client’ (who may be the generator or builder) who employs the formation significantly (and thus in a sense serves as a ‘transmitter’ of that signal to himself (or themselves) or to others—or both). In an idealized sense, and in a manner homologous to ‘speaker-hearer’ transmission in verbal language, there exists an ‘addresser’, an ‘addressee’, and a (more or less permanent) ‘message’ or transmission. But there are patently a wide variety of possible realizations of the various components of the transmission, of semiosis.

These differences from the processes of linguistic semiosis are a corollary of the nature of the signing medium itself, the relative object-permanence of the sign-formation, and the nature of the variant usages or contextual referents of that semiosis. Nevertheless, the fundamental semioses of both systems are clearly homologous.

Consequently, the ‘functional deviation’ on the part of ‘addressees’ cannot strictly speaking be considered a function in and of the code itself except insofar as there are corpus-specific constraints upon meaning, usage or interpretation. Such ‘violation’ is allowable to varying degrees by different systems principally as an artifact of the conventionality of built environments as systems of signs. Conventionality is a property of codes, and not a function.

‘Functional deviation’ on the part of the ‘addresser’, however, does in fact relate to one of the functions of architectonic transmissions, insofar as it refers to an orientation upon the signer(s) or makers themselves. In this sense, an architectonic formation may reveal an emphasis upon various aspects of the identity or identities of ‘addresser(s)’—as in the case where a formation manifests sense-determinative cues as to the orientation of the addresser(s) upon the various components of architectonic semiosis.

A formation may bear the mark of a ‘personal style’ through palpable deviations or idiosyncratic realizations of (for example) sets of corpus-specific historical norms, or of common referential associations, aesthetic norms, or phatic-territorial norms.

Such an orientation recalls the ‘emotive’^a functions of a linguistic message, wherein a speaker will give cues as to his particular orientation upon a given subject. Thus, the statement ‘New York is very far from here’ reveals the particular emotive perspective of a speaker by contrast with a statement oriented upon the referential context, such as ‘New York is ten miles from here’.

In a linguistic code, the ‘emotive’ orientation may be cued by a very wide variety of means-intonation, stress, the use of certain lexical items, etc.

In a similar fashion, a built environment patently reveals an emotive or expressive^a orientation upon the identity of an ‘addresser’ through corpus-specific means. An outsider or child may have to learn a large number of subtle cues as to whether a given construct manifests a personal, expressive, stylistic deviance from a conventional set of norms. Moreover, such cues may be realized both in details of geometric or spatial formation and in the use of certain kinds of materials, colors, textures, and so forth. In addition, cues may be found with respect to the associative usages prescribed by a formation’s components. If kitchens are conventionally square in plan while bedrooms are conventionally 1:2 rectangles in plan, a formation which idiosyncratically reverses these contextual associations will be expressive of the particular perspective on these norms on the part of the addresser.

It is important in this regard to understand that the ‘addresser’ in such a case may be either the original generator of the design of the construct (or his surrogates), or the ‘user’ of that formation—as in the case where a ‘client’ expressively reorganizes a house in a way which deviates from the norms set out unambiguously by the ‘generator’. In this instance, the ‘user’ functions as a signer or addresser vis-à-vis himself and others. Once again, the ability to do this is itself a concomitant property of the architectonic code in contrast to some others, wherein the ‘roles’ of addresser and addressee are not necessarily coterminous with a simple ‘speaker-hearer’ relationship, and which moreover is an artifact of the particular ‘medium’ or channel of the code, whose constraints are different from those of nonvisual codes.

Architectonic multifunctionality is manifest, then, as sets of relative orientations upon the various components of the processes of semiosis. In addition, a given function will achieve greater or lesser dominance in a given transmission with respect to coeval functions. Furthermore, since architectonic transmissions remain perceptually available, they are open to highly complex and subtle reorientations over time, so that a function which may be dominant over others at the time of a formation’s generation may be replaced in favor of other orientations or functions, either immediately or over many generations. It is more than simply a matter of static, idiosyncratic reinterpretation: it is in fact a reorganization and re-transmission of a sign which continues to ‘broadcast’ in subtle and ironic dynamic synchrony. The addresser of an architectonic transmission is the person or persons who use an architectonic formation.

FUNCTIONAL CORRELATIVITY^a

Thus, while we would concur generally with Mukařovský’s picture of architectural polyfunctionality, it is clear that his model is ambiguous with regard to the maker-client relationship in the processes of semiosis.

Thus far, our explication of architectonic multifunctionality suggests the following picture. In architectonic semiosis, an orientation

The resultant picture clearly resonates with the conception of linguistic multifunctionality devised by Jakobson and others¹⁸ wherein the orientations upon various components of a transmission delineate a variety of functions, each of which may be in greater or lesser dominance with respect to others which may be co-occurrent in the same transmission.

According to Jakobson’s formulation, an orientation upon:

It may be asked if the architectonic system reveals a functional orientation correlative to the conative-exhortatory function in verbal language. The answer is patent, once we are clear about the coexistent nature of functions in architectonic formations. Environmental objects do in fact carry exhortations to channel, constrain and routinize spatiokinetic behavior by the very fact that they serve to stage behaviors (sc., they indicate certain ranges of referential association).

This function is manifest in a very wide variety of ways in different corpora. This is not to say that architectonic and linguistic conation are coterminous with respect to behavioral activity. Certain equivalencies are patent, of course, but not all. I can guard my privacy either by shouting at persons who approach to ‘keep out!’, or I can build a wall, with a gate to which only I have a key.

I can also signal my intentions redundantly by building a high wall and posting a written message reading ‘keep out’; indeed multimodal conation and its concomitant perceptual augmentation would appear to be the norm in human societies.

By virtue of the fact that any verbal message stands to influence the behavior of a listener, the conative function may normally be present in verbal semiosis. In a similar fashion, by virtue of the fact that an architectonic formation—a built environment—necessarily channels behavior in a wide variety of ways, the phatic-territorial function of architectonic semiosis is essentially coexistent with its conative orientation. But clearly the two are not coterminous, any more than the phatic and conative functions of verbal semiosis are. In part, the distinction lies in the vector of emphasis, and the orientation upon different semiotic components of a transmission.

Linguistic conation comprises exhortation which is only in part territorial or addressed to spatiokinesis; architectonic conation addresses ‘addressees’ through a spatiokinetic medium in order to achieve a variety of conceptual ends.

A given building may place heavy emphasis upon (what a generator or a society may regard as) efficient ‘circulation’. In this case, a formation will provide users with a variety of motor-optical cues which carry information as to how to get from point A to point B within a building, or how to reach an exit in case of fire or divine wrath, or how to behave in a polite fashion when going through a doorway.

These ends may be achieved in a great many corpus-specific ways—from the shaping of corridors to a heavy articulation of components of a formation such as doorways which prescribe certain routines of formal entrance, to conventionally-understood color-codings of elements, to verbal signs and arrows, to red-amber-and-green traffic signals.²⁰

The ball of red thread unravelled by Ariadne for the use of Theseus in escaping the lair of the minotaur at the center of the Knossian labyrinth is a clear example of architectonic conation (in this case tantalizingly supported by a particular archaeological find).²¹

The addressee may be exhorted to ‘follow the yellow brick road’ to reach a certain goal, and the Spanish Steps may have called forth certain spatiokinetic rhythms in the behavior of their initial addressees.

It need not be stressed that conative emphases differ from one corpus to another; whatever may be trans-societal in perceptual address, human perceptual mechanisms are socialized into conventional norms: a doorway twice human scale may be either uplifting or intimidating, forbidding or inviting, even in the same breath. Nor do red brick sidewalks necessarily lead to minotaurs.²²

The picture of multifunctionality observable in built environments patently calls forth linguistic correspondences which are more correlative^a than coterminous, as we have suggested above:

It should be borne in mind that such correlations comprise broad equivalencies, given the patent differences in the two sign systems. The two systems are not isofunctional in any given culture, and their redundancies overlap in a dynamic manner. They are not two ways of ‘doing the same thing’, they are partly-redundant modalities in multimodal social communication, designed to reinforce each other in some respects, while simultaneously offering different advantages, under contrastive circumstances.

The built environment may provide a matrix or template for behavior, but it is not a static template, it is continually palimpsested as a result of that behavior, and is never the same at two points in time, even if to the unaware it might ‘look’ the same. The same patently applies to verbal language.

It cannot be maintained that ‘architecture’ is merely four-dimensional language any more than it can be claimed that architecture is simply frozen music; nor can it be claimed that language is merely architecture in Flatland. Whatever architectonic and linguistic systems share, they share features by virtue of their generic functions as human semiotic systems. As such, they patently reveal correlative processes of formation and signification

Nor can it be maintained that the one is a blank ground to the other’s figure, however momentarily useful it might be to so represent them in analysis, and even when they so appear to operate with respect to each other for specific purposes.²³ They each provide a partially-overlapping perspective on the totalities of a society’s culture, on its particular world, much like two sets of sensory organs which together and in close concert respond to different features of a percept to build an overall composite reality.

We cannot adequately understand the structure and operant functions of either modality without an understanding of its cross-indexed complement /supplement. There are too many loose threads in each modality when analyzed with one eye. Moreover, our view of each will also be a function of our perspective on the organization of culture itself as a multi-modal system of sign systems.²⁴

In addition, in attempting to understand the nature of architectonic functionality it will be important to have some understanding of the origins of the system in human evolution. Although this subject is outside of the realm of interests of the present volume,²⁵ the generic subject of the purposes of the built environment vis-à-vis other sign-systems lies at the heart of our present concerns, and we have attempted to address this issue through various perspectives.

At the beginning of this section, we discussed briefly the problem of the material organization of architectonic formations, and it is to this question that we shall presently turn.

Before addressing these questions, we need to say a word about the nature of what we have generically termed in this chapter the ‘association’ of a formation and its ‘referent meanings’. If it is in fact the case that architectonic formations are multifunctional in orientation, revealing a variety of coexistent orientations upon the several components of architectonic semiosis, then how may we characterize the geometries of that associability? What kind or kinds of relationships exist between a given formation and its associated referents?

The architectonic sign comprises a formation (signans)^a or that-which-signifies, plus its referent (signatum)^a, or that-which-is-signified. In concurring generally with the Peirceian notion of ‘meaning’ as a translation or transmutation connecting one medium (e.g., a material formation) with another (e.g., a set of behaviors or a set of cognitive domains—which may include the formation itself),²⁶ we can assert that such translational connectivities are of several types.

The relationship between a formation and its referent may, for example, be of an iconic^a nature, wherein the formation purports to resemble its referent in varying degrees. Thus, a construct which purports to simulate or model, in the syntactic association of its component parts, a certain conceptual order (e.g., a society’s image of its cosmos), may function as an iconic sign. The great stupa-mountain of Borobudur in Java may thus be seen as an iconic sign in that its parts are assembled to portray an idealized cosmic structure.

Iconism in the architectonic code may be manifested along a scale of resemblance from the patently pictorial or figurative to the generically diagrammatic. In the case of Borobudur, the construct is in fact a model of the Buddhist universe, organized to be perceived spatiotemporally as a life-passage from the chaotic depths of mortal despair to the heights of heavenly harmony and oneness. A simple example of a more diagrammatic iconicity would be the organization of the component parts of a construct so that their relative proportions and placement embody, say, the idealized proportions of the human body.

Architectonic iconism may involve some aspect of conventional symbolism^a, wherein the component parts of a formation generically resemble the relative placement of body parts (or ‘parts’ of a body politic, such as the communion of the faithful), while depending for their iconicity upon cultural and conventional associations, as in the case where the parts of a christian church purport an association with parts of the ‘body’ of the church as an institution—the bricks being said to be the aggregate of the individual faithful, the mortar joining them christian love or charity, etc.²⁷

In a general sense, architectonic constructs serve as iconic signs in that their spatiotemporal organization obversely simulates or models the behavioral geometry of episodic routines. It may be questioned if iconism in the architectonic code is ever really ‘pure’ rather than being characteristically admixed with aspects of conventional and corpus-specific symbolism. Nor for that matter is a snapshot a ‘pure’ icon.²⁸

A symbolic sign would be one in which the relationship between signans and signatum is the result of conventional association. Icons and symbols are characteristically admixed such that most iconic signs will be at least partly symbolic, and vice-versa.²⁹

Architectonic and linguistic signs evidently differ with respect to the characteristic dominance of different kinds of signans-signatum relationships. Iconism may be more prevalent in architectonic systems than in languages, but it is clear that both codes are primarily symbolic in nature, and their varying degrees of iconicity may be merely an artifact of more fundamental differences between the systems with respect to medium, permanence and dimensionality.

In a Peirceian frame, architectonic signs may also be of an indexical^a nature, wherein certain formations bear a relationship of immediate contiguity to their referents. The familiar examples of a traffic signal or visual arrow come to mind, but in such a perspective we would also have to admit doors and walls as functioning indexically with respect to their contiguous association with operant behaviors such as entering and exiting vis-à-vis other loci.

But even such indexical signs as the red-amber-green traffic signal are coevally symbolic or conventional, since it has not been demonstrated that their particular contrastive colors will inherently trigger invariant reactions among all humans, except insofar as a society has made an arbitrary association between ‘red’ and ‘stopping’ in contrast to ‘green’ and ‘proceeding’.

In addition to the evident fact that in an architectonic system signs will be inherently admixed with respect to symbolism, iconity and indexicality, it is also pertinent to note that architectonic and linguistic codes do not inherently contrast with respect to purported differences in the ‘gradiency’ or non-binary contrastiveness of sign formation. As is now patent, architectonic signification parallels that of verbal language in relying upon perceptually-palpable distinctions and disjunctions in formation, whose contrastive oppositions in formation purport to signal differences in conceptual information and association. Both systems employ binary contrastive oppositions as well as complex relative gradiences. Despite claims in both directions, the particular ‘mix’ of the two may not be all that different: the more we understand of the nature and organization of architectonic (and in general visual) semiosis, the more it becomes apparent that the purported ‘gradiency’ of architectonic signals is a corollary of corpus-specific differences in medium, functions, usages, and the nature of the perceptual mechanisms addressed and employed.

Architectonic and linguistic systems signify in processually-equivalent ways; they do not present an absolute black and white contrast to each other, and they are designed to operate in the context of each other. Their semantic domains dynamically overlap and implicate each other.

Where one offers a palpable categorization in a broad range, the other may specify detailed significative distinctions. Whether there exists a lexical item for a Hopi ‘kiva’ or not,³⁰ the architectonic system incorporates a certain distinctive configuration (and vice-versa). Where one system may point with a narrow finger, the other may broadly gesture. But each system does both, in culture-specific, code-specific, and conventionally symbolic ways.

Both systems present a people with complementary and supplementary perspectives on a sociocultural world, and both are intended to serve as ‘common codes’ for different reasons and at different times, as well as in partly-redundant and dynamic synchronization.

The received classification of signs as indexical, iconic and symbolic may or may not turn out to be useful in the long run. We simply need to know much more about the nature and organization of nonlinguistic semiosis. This in turn will affect our picture of linguistic signs.³¹

I suspect that a further explication of the phenomena of metaphor and metonymy will shed light on this problem, for it is evident that the Peirceian “iconic” and “indexical” relations are subsumed under these categories, with the notion of “symbol” reserved for generic conventional semiotic signing of any type (see below, Appendix).

Furthermore, we should be wary of using such categories as necessary indicators of stages in conceptual ontogenesis (as, for example, where a symbolic sign is taken as inherently more conceptually advanced than, say, an iconic sign, or an indexical sign). It remains unclear to what extent one sign-type necessarily implies the prior existence of one or both of the other.

This unclarity is in part the result of ambiguities in the fossil record. It has not been entirely clear what kind of ontogenetic formal evidence is really needed to support a picture of linear, componential evolution of sign-types.³²

FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER IV

¹A good sample of the kinds of approaches to architectonic meaning may be found in C. Jencks, ed., Meaning in Architecture, New York, 1970.

²M. Wallis, “Semantic and Symbolic Elements in Architecture: Iconology as a First Step Towards an Architectural Semiotic,” in M. Wallis, Arts & Signs (Studies in Semiotics 2), Bloomington, Indiana, 1975, pp. 50-51.

³Ibid., with extensive references, p. 51.

⁴Semi-autonomous, that is, in the sense of being non-necessary. A given color is not necessarily tied to a given geometric shape but may be copresent with other shapes (and vice-versa). See also our discussion above in Chapter II.

⁵ See above, Chapter II, section on “Formative Units.”

⁶See our discussion below in Chapter V.

⁷See Preziosi, Origins . . . , Chapter III.

⁸Or a ‘local city hall’, or community center, etc.

⁹J. Mukařovský, op. cit., 240.

¹⁰Ibid., 241 ff.

¹¹ibid., 242.

¹²Id.; the author further suggests that various nuances of the symbolic function are also incorporated into this functional horizon.

¹³Ibid., 244.

¹⁴Ibid., 242.

¹⁵The most familiar example being the period of the European Renaissance, wherein ancient paradigms and models were rediscovered, or reinvented; similarly during the Neoclassical period during which classical archaeology arose in part as a handmaiden of architectural practice (applied architectonics).

¹⁶For a lucid discussion of the problem, see G. Kubier, The Shape of Time, New Haven, 1965.

¹⁷See M. Silverstein, op. cit., 21 ff.

¹⁸R. Jakobson, “Linguistics and Poetics,” in T. Sebeok, ed., Style in Language, Bloomington, Indiana, 1960, 350-377.

¹⁹M. Silverstein, loc. cit. gives an interesting account of the place of ‘semantic’ meaningfulness in speech arts.

²⁰That is to say, each architectonic system will incorporate a variety of parastructural formations in transmission of information, often providing a large amount of redundancy or perceptual enhancement over and above the ‘syntactic’ aggregation of formations.

²¹I.e., a thin red border along the lower part of the walls of the main corridor linking the central court of the Knossian palace with the western outer entrance.

²²See in this regard the work of K. Lynch cited in the Bibliography.

²³See Preziosi, 1978k.

²⁴ For a discussion of the ‘design features’ of cultures, see Preziosi, Origins . . . , Chapter V, section 2, and see the Appendix below.

²⁵Discussed in Preziosi, Origins . . . , Chapter II.

²⁶That is to say, the aesthetic function, wherein signans = signatum. This contrasts with the notions elaborated by R. Barthes, Mythologies, Paris, 1957, esp. p. 115; see the commentary by T. Hawkcs on the subjcct in his Semiotics an J Structuralism, Berkeley, 1977, Chapter 3.

²⁷See M. Wallis, op. cit., 39-58.

²⁸With respect to photographic images, we may discern a correlative multifunctionality grounded in differential reference-orientations: Photography vs. snapshots recalling the dominance of an aesthetic orientation vs. other kinds of orientation (phatic, conative, etc.).

²⁹See U. Eco's important critique of the Peirccian trichotomies in U. Eco, A Theory of Semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana. 1976, 191 ff.

³⁰B. L. Whorf, Language, Thought & Reality, Cambridge, Mass.. 1956, 199 ff.

³¹See U. Eco, loc. cit.

³²See Preziosi, Origins . . . , Chapter IV.