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Semiotics and architecture: Theater and reality in Spain, 1968-1988

First of all, I want to consider that my conception of what architecture represents for men is both a traditional one and, I hope, a futuristic one. Architecture is not, in my opinion, the art of building buildings; more precisely, architecture is a place-making activity that relates dwelling, building, and design (Muntanola 1973, 1980). The epistemological and disciplinary boundaries of architecture have always been fuzzy. Aristotle, not without a touch of irony, stated long ago that architects were either architects-builders, or architectsbusinessmen, or architects-planners, or a mixture of all of these. Since then, European culture has always lacked the proper classification of architecture into different realms (Muntanola 1985). These classifications have produced much more confusion than clarity, both in the theory and in the practice of architecture. Even the differentiation between architecture and environment produces confusion today. A lot of architects situate architecture in art, and environmental issues — and the urban planning these issues necessitate — in politics. Nevertheless, it is not strange that the semiotic disciplines have encountered the same epistemological problems when confronted with the architectural objects or processes. Of course, as it has been often defined, semiotics has nothing to do with the real architecture made by architects. However, I resist this interpretation, and I defend a kind of semiotics of architecture that can be significant for designers, users, and politicians. I have argued in other publications (i.e., Muntanola 1976, 1987) that the semiotics of architecture has produced a complex set of independent semiotic architectural systems. Most of the time, the authors of these systems totally ignored each others' work. Now it is time for reflection upon this situation.