Architecture is like a Language

The semiotic theory of Peirce is discussed in this second chapter, with regard to how looking at architecture through a Peircean lens prompts one to re-evaluate general architectural notions regarding language, and the relevance of meaning in design and the forming of built environments. In setting out the significance of the Peircean semiotic model to architecture, some misconceptions about the application of semiotic theory to architecture are ironed out. The application of semiotic theory in architectural discourse has been confused. There was a vigour to architectural semiotic enquiry that has been lost, because the discourse became convoluted and onerous. An unfortunate situation because, if life is a consequence of semiotic interplay, and if cognition is a process of semiosis (as Peirce claims), then understanding of semiotics, and its significance to architecture, is fundamental to the design of built environments. Particularly if engagement with the world is a process of perception-action, which unfolds through engagement with environment. On this basis then, given architecture is about the creation of environment, a semiotic perspective of architecture is crucial. Architects need to learn to engage with and play, what Geoffrey Broadbent referred to as, the “semiotic game”. The significance of space and semiosis to architecture, on the premise that one informs the other, it is claimed, establishes the relevance of biosemiotics to architecture. Biosemiotics understands organisms not only as sign-acting, sign-manipulating and sign-creating systems, but also as products of sign-action. Hence, if organisms are both products and manipulators of signs, they are also intrinsically products and manipulators of space as well, because signs typically involve some spatial dimension. The biosemiotic outlook therefore offers a unique platform by which to examine ‘space’ as intrinsic to being, and this concluding chapter to Part One of the book sets the ground for this.