LITERATURE REVIEW Architecture as cultural symbol: The expression of ideas through the Built Form- A Review of Selected Research. Grant Chapman | n1874713 DAB 420 | Architecture, Culture and Space | Semester 2 2010 Tutors |Thea Nitschke |Stephanie Cook

Figure 1: Image sourced from: Melucco Vaccaro,Talley and Price. 1996.

1. Introduction

“The evolution of a phonemic system at any given moment is directed by the tendency towards a goal”

Troubetzkoy (as cited in Levi-Strauss 1963:34)

“Can the anthropologist, using a method analogous in form (if not in content) to the method used in structural linguistics, achieve the same kind of progress in his own science as that which has taken place in linguistics?” Claude Levi- Strauss (1963:34)

In defining the major areas of research in the field of the relationship between the built environment and spatial form, Lawrence and Low surmise that social symbolic approaches “identify immediate and direct expressions of social and political structures in the built environment” (1990:467), in effect how cultural ideas on space are imbued into the built form. This literature review explores the inherent relationship between culture and the built form. This paper acknowledges that even though architecture may be representative of the political life of a culture or a state, social and organisational behaviours are beyond the scope of this discourse. The selected articles offer an understanding of how architecture may be seen as a symbolic reflection of culture and the ways in which architecture and the built form act as catalyst for the expression of a cultures values and ideas. Amos Rapoport argues the importance of symbols and their role in defining a place as being special and to have meaning (1974:58). He emphasises that most designed environments have major symbolic content (1974:58). Paul R. Jones focuses on how links between landmark buildings and collective identities are developed (2006:550). He notes the capacity of architecture to represent abstract values materially, literally ‘in concrete,’ and that societies institutions, the political in particular, attempt to express collective cultural identities through the medium (2006:549). George Murray analyses the hot architectural debates between architects, critics, city planners and town legislators in Berlin over the directions in which post war cultural identity should shape the physical reconstruction of the city since the coming down of the Wall and the re-unification of Germany in 1989 and cites Jencks describing the rebuilding of Berlin as “the biggest challenge to architecture since London burned in the seventeenth century” (2008:3). Michael Hays examines what he calls a critical architecture, one he attempts to locate between architecture as an instrument of culture and architecture as an autonomous form (1984:16). Hays believes that although the architectural object is contextualised historically and circumstantially within culture, the architecture and the fact that it is placed denotes that its interpretation has already commenced but is never complete (1984:17).

2. Interpretations of Symbolism: Accounting for the Relationship Between Culture, it’s Buildings and it’s Places

Rapoport (1974), Hays (1984), Jones (2006) and Murray (2008) all construe the symbolic relationship between culture and architecture. Rapoport notes that although there may be many definitions of “symbol,” most agree about certain features of symbols. Rapoport (1974) quotes Langer (as cited in Rapoport 1974:58) who defines a symbol as any device whereby we are able to make an abstraction, which is a type of separation and a common theme amongst the theorists. Rapoport continues that symbols are distinguished from signals and signs: the signal or sign makes us notice the situation to which it portends whereas a symbol allows us to conceptualise the idea it represents- it’s function being the expression of ideas (1974:58). Jones is similarly cognisant in that he recognises how architecture is a specific and significant part of a symbolic repertoire that cultures have at their disposal (2006:550). Supporting his view is Jenks (as cited in Jones 2006:551) who proclaims the inescapability of meaning in the built environment. In countering, Hays attempts to move beyond the traditional definitions of architectural symbolism: those that emphasise culture as the cause and content of built form (1984:16) or an opposite position that advocates the reproduction of interpretations based solely on form (1984:16). Hays’ reproach has implications on the manipulation of symbolic content in structure and its intended outcomes. He relates that individual architectures have a specific place in the world and this sets limits on its ability to be re-interpreted (1984:17). Murray identifies the impact that a desire for an architecture that talks has had on the decision making process involved in Berlins redevelopment and in doing so supports Rapoport, Jones and Hay’s linking of cultural expression through built form by presupposing the role of symbolic gestures in architecture. Importantly Murray quotes Lynch (as cited in Murray 2008:11) as identifying means by which one may enhance ones image of the city resulting from the two way process that involves both the city and the subject. These include the use of symbolic devices that include a cities visual qualities, retraining the perceiver and the reshaping of one’s surrounds (2008:11).

3. Symbolism at Work

This section of the review provides specific examples of architectural and spatial constructs that the four authors identify as posing symbolic cultural meaning and gives an analysis as to why they serve as cultural symbolic expressions of the built form.

Rapoport depicts the Byzantine Church, seen as Ikon, the Mosque and its court in Iran as a symbol of Paradise, the Roman Pantheon as the ideal dome of Heaven and the medieval cathederal as the celestial city (1974:58). Jones cites similar culturally defined examples that include the Millennium Dome, Berlin’s Reichstag, the Scottish Parliament in Edinborough, the new national stadium to replace Wembley in the UK, the works of Daniel Libeskind and

the site at ground zero all of which are central for the promulgation of attached meaning (Jones 2006:556) and collective identity discourses within their respective environments(Jones 2006:550). Murray’s focus on culturally significant sites in Berlin include Pariser Platz, the square fronted by Berlins Brandenburg Gate, the churches and the opera house at Gendarmenmarkt and the public buildings of the Forum Fridericianum on the Unter den Linden (2008:6). He delineates the seventeenth century suburb Friedreichstadt, demarcated by the old customs wall (Zollmaer) as the battleground for Berlins own ‘identity discourses‘, as previously related by Jones; in this case the Berliner Architektenstreit of the mid 1990s (2008:6). Here the planning and architectural doctrine of critical reconstruction, or kritische rekonstruktion, aims at invoking a city that will recall it’s most enlightened moments, namely the Boroque Berlin of the seventeenth century (Classic LNL 2009). For the critical reconstructionist architects who debate the importance of these sites to their city,this Boroque Berlin is symbolic of all that was opposed in the Nazi era Germany: a cosmopolitan, experimental and artistically avante-garde city (Murray 2006:12). Jones further develops this theme of the creation of place that is symbolically attatched to memory when he describes context dependant and socially constructed connections to certain buildings (2006:556) and that debates such as those taking place in Berlin are part of what Libeskind promotes as being a part of [a] civic process (as quoted in Jones 2006:562). Jones point is that means by which buildings become bound to a cultures identity are as important as the structure itself and this can result in political tensions (2006:556). These sites presented by Jones and Murray are potentially representative of Rappoports dichotomy on the specific exclusion of utilitarian buildings and vernacular architectures in studies that relate the importance of symbols in buildings (1974:58) and his continued emphasis on the symbolism underlying the organisation of whole landscapes, villages and cities (1974:58).

Hays depicts Mies van der Rohe’s early works as representational of the Abstract living of the metropolis converted into form (1984:18).He purports that van de Rohe rejects classical design meanings (1984:19) through the portrayal of distortion in the reflective surfaces of his works (1984:19). Hays beliefs aren’t necessarily a departure from the more pragmatic interpretations (Rapoport 1974, Jones 2006 and Murray 2008) of the architectural symbolic. In fact the self-contained contextualisations of his Meisian qualified moment (1984:20) continue to preserve the reality of a, albeit refined, symbolism in structure. Again a comparison can be made between the way Hays puts forward van de Rohe’s works as being contextually resistant and oppositional (1984:17) and how the Berlin reconstructionist view seeks to implement its agenda beyond the existing framework of Berlins past (Murray2008:12).

4. Issues within the Field

There is an acknowledgement between Rapoport (1974), Jones (2006), Murray (2008) and Hays (1984) of the dilemma that symbols present for the designer today and how they continue to be problematic for the architect (Rapoport 1974:58). This is implied in Levi- Straus’s question of whether or not the comparative analysis of certain institutional forms have the ability to demonstrate fundamental problems in the life of societies (1963:133). Murray, for example, is concerned with how forcibly we can reasonably expect any ideological message encoded in architecture to be (2008:11) and he concedes, along with Jones, that a debate about an architecture that is pertinent to a city is really a debate about cultural identity and image (Murray 2008:15) and the design of a vision of how society should be (Jones 2006:552). Jones notes further potential contentions where how much emphasis should be placed on the way architects interpret their own buildings given that the meaning of architecture may be removed from what architecture actually is (2006:556). Hays similarly observes such schemes of interpretation as being hopelessly subjective (1984:16), particularly in relation to how an architectural work requires a solicitation of experience that is intrinsic to its meaning (1984:20). Jones relates of a discord in the symbolic construction of the ground zero site that’s involved within a communicative context which he says should form an open narrative rather than be one governed by cultural and political elites (2006:562) and yet the indomitable position of Hays’ van de Rohe works beyond authoritative culture and its formal systems (1984:27). This problem is put forward by Leach (as cited in Murray 2008:11) in that the image of a given reality may vary significantly between different observers of the built form. Rapoport, however, maintains that given the existence of universal or transcultural symbols in architecture they present a sine qua non, thus his advocating of a continued investigation into the underlying associations of different forms (1974:61).

5. Conclusion

What’s been gleaned from the chosen literature is the desire for culture, which Tylor defines as being “tools, institutions, customs, beliefs and language” (as cited in Levi- Strauss 63:68), to articulate and express meaning and purpose in its projections of self onto the built form. A further and critical discovery is that the study of symbolic representations in architecture are based in the concerns of anthropology. This critical analysis of chosen literature has demonstrated that symbolic representation in architecture exists and that these are open to interpretation and have the potential to be juxtaposed, misconstrued, misplaced or disregarded upon application. Here lies the potential for the provision of symbolic architectural responses that deliver outcomes respectful of a cultures aspirations, its ideals and identity.

6. List of References

Classic LNL: Berlin Architetcure 1995. 2009. In Phillip Adams Late Night Live. Australia: Australian Braodcasting Corporation.

Fry, P. 2009. Semiotics and Structuralism. retrieved 16th August 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsMfaIOsT3M

Habraken, N. J. and J. Teicher. 1998. The structure of the ordinary : form and control in the built environment. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Hays, K. M. 1984. Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form. Perspecta 21: 14-29. Jones, P. 2006. The Sociology of Architecture and the Politics of Building: the Discursive

Construction of Ground Zero. Sociology 40 (3):549-565. Lawrence, D. L. and S. M. Low. 1990. The Built Environment and Spatial Form. Annual

Review of Anthropology 19:453-505. Leach, N. 1997. Rethinking architecture : a reader in cultural theory. New York: Routledge. Levi- Strauss, C. 1963. Structural Anthropology. Norwich: Fletcher & Son Ltd. Melucco Vaccaro, A., M. K. Talley and N. S. Price. 1996. Historical and philosophical issues in

the conservation of cultural heritage, Readings in conservation. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute.

Murray, G. J. 2008. City Building and the Rhetoric of “Readability”: Architectural Debates in the New Berlin. City & Community 7 (1):3-21.

Nesbitt, K. 1996. Theorizing a new agenda for architecture : an anthology of architectural

theory 1965-1995. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Parkin, R. and L. Stone. 2004. Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader Malden, MA:

Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Rapoport, A. 1974. Symbolism and Environmental Design. Journal of Architectural Education

27 (4):58-63. Venturi, R., D. Scott Brown and S. Izenour. 1977. Learning from Las Vegas : the forgotten

symbolism of architectural form. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

7. The Criteria Set An objective of this literature review has been to form a set of criteria that allow an evaluation of architecture. The following set of questions have emerged from this study in respect to architecture as cultural symbol and the expression of its ideas through the Built Form. (1) Does the analysis of certain institutional forms have the ability to demonstrate fundamental problems in the life of societies and if so what is it that a culture is attempting to define about itself? What is the conscious and unconscious that’s happening here? (2) Does a building/ design promote a dialogue? (3) Is there the possibility of a building/ design to be misinterpreted or polemicised or is the desire for deliberate ambiguity/ duality? Is there the potential for superficiality within any symbolic accounts of the built form? (4) Are cross cultural or multi cultural interpretations possible or necessarily aspired to? (5) How might non-visual phenomena and symbols in the built environment be promoted given the limitations of the purely visual form? How can we appeal to the functioning of all our senses in expressing intent in structure, ie, is the reproduction of memory facilitated by the design?

Image sourced from: Melucco Vaccaro,Talley and Price. 1996.