The metaphor: images and shape in architecture

Context is not only the physical reality that sorrounds us but also the atmosphere which is able to evoke emotions giving us an aesthetic pleasure. Metaphor is a tool that make this atmosphere cognizable in a rational way. An Architecture can reach a metaphoric significance as it allows a multiplicity of iconic information to fix clearly in the mind of an individual through few invariant elements, asso-ciating the artefact to an idea of architecture which is already known by the individual itself. We could recognize three metaphoric type: -metaphor, through operation of substitution modifies the “distance” between a shape and what it represents, providing architecture with a chance to be “other” from technical-functional needs. -architecture represents an iconological theme which is estranged from the functional program and introduces contaminations with other iconic realities. The context is an iconological theme. -architecture as a metaphor of one's own building act. -architecture as a metaphor of environmental, physical or temporal conditions.