Architecture is Space

Architecture is space When Michele De Lucchi began to edit Domus, he wrote that he would devote the magazine to “objects and their meanings”. For an architecture magazine, this programme implies that architecture is concerned with objects and meanings. Neither of the two theses convinces me. I will start with the second. That architecture deals with meanings implies that it should be understood as a language. Yet, if this was the case, we should be able to identify the “words” of architecture. (Whole buildings? Pieces of buildings like columns and windows? Or smaller parts, like cornices, railings, skirting boards?) Then we would have to define a way to connect the meanings and signifiers regularly, establish a constant grammar, and finally understand who sends messages through buildings, and to whom. Who speaks in architecture parlante? And who to?