Meaning in architecture - Charles Jencks, George Baird - LANGUAGE.pdf

Language

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The 1960s saw the revival of interest in the question of meaning in

architecture •

This was mirrored in the ‘self-consciousness’ in the use and definition of terms with which the discipline described itself

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These two issues together led to the so-called ‘linguistic analogy’: The idea that architecture

could be understood as a form

of visual language •

The questions raised by this: To what extent does architecture have conventions, in the way language does; And are these conventions so widely understood that there is a ‘social contract’ in architecture, which enables the comprehension of architecture?

• Peter Eisenman, ‘Post-functionalism’ •

Questioned the term ‘postmodern’, claiming modernism itself never happened

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Claimed the relationship between form and function had been present since the Renaissance

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The quest for type, or ‘ideal themes in form’, was balanced with programmatic accommodation

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Industrialisation introduced new functions, making existing typologies inadequate This resulted in the ‘form follows function’ formula But the ‘postmodern’ period is just a continuation of the questions that started with the Renaissance

Eisenman, House II, 1969-70

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He proposes postfunctionalism: ‘fragmentation of typical forms into signs’ This would, according to Eisenman, constitute the actual modernist project

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This is partly in tune with the work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown:

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Like Eisenman they reject literal representation of function

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But they accept that the idea that function is still worthy of representation, as a meaning in architecture

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‘If you take the signs away there is no place’ - the statement challenges phenomenology and its insistence on place-making

‘Decorated shed’ preferred over the ‘Duck’ (Learning from Las Vegas)

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Umberto Eco in ‘Function and Sign: Semiotics in Architecture’ asserted that function is the primary meaning in architecture Which is in direct contrast with Eisenman’s position Charles Jencks and George Baird, Meaning in Architecture (1969) Compilation of writing that uses structuralist and semiological ideas in architecture Jencks: ‘semantization is inevitable’ ‘two points are relevant to my purpose: (1) that every act, object and statement that man perceives is meaningful (even ‘nothing’) and (2) that the frontiers of meaning are always, momentarily, in a state of collapse and paradox.’ (Jencks)

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Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977)

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A wide-ranging study of the ‘expressive content’ of architecture Looks at film sets, hotel lobbies, hot-dog stands, etc., not just buildings Widely read (a bestseller); he announces the ‘death’ of modernism

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Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas propose an interpretation of the link between linguistics and architecture The influence of Roland Barthes is evident in their work –

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the idea of ‘reading’ the city, for example Gandelsonas investigated this in The Urban Text

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In ‘Semiotics and Architecture’ Agrest and Gandelsonas distinguish between linguistics and communication theory

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1 Semotiocs/semiology: science of the different systems of linguistic signs It deals with the nature of signs and how they behave within a system It involves signification, or the production of meaning This is accomplished through two components of the sign: the signifier (word) and the signified (object)

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2 Communication theory: use and effects of signs - their function and reception - in the transmission of a message

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For Agrest and Gandelsonas, semiotics offers a way of understanding the

production of meaning in architecture In their project, this is closely related to the notion of critical theory as opposed to ideology

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Geoffrey Broadbent, ‘A Plain Man’s Guide to the Theory of Signs in Architecture’

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architects should understand how this meaning is created in order to prevent accidental meanings

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Modern functionalism failed to create a ‘machine-like and meaning-free’ architecture Architecture, according to Broadbent, has an ‘inescapable semantic dimension’

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Buildings carry meaning and

Robert Venturi, Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia, 1962

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The distinction between the semantic and the syntactic aspects of language is made to show that architecture might work primarily in the former realm Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, Robert Stern and Charles Moore are shown to be postmodern architects in whose work the semantic aspect is prominent

Graves, Humana Building, Louisville, 1982

Graves, Portland Building, 1980

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Unlike Agrest and Gandelsonas, Broadbent insists that ultimately the ‘social contract’ is missing in architecture (as opposed to language)

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Apart from the linguistic and communication theories, Broadbent also tackles behavioural and environmental psychology But rather than just being read visually, architecture should be (and inevitably is) approached with all the senses

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FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste)

Blue House, Office, Apartment, London, 2004

The Villa, community building, Hoogvliet,The Netherlands, 2008

Refurbishement of Tanner Point, Brookes Estate, London, 2005

Islington Square - Social Housing, New Islington, Manchester 2006