Reflection of Semiotic Ideas in the Reading of Architecture: Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Approaches

The need to explain architecture semiotics based on the theoretical concepts of architecture and alignment with linguistic and semiotic ideas is evident. This study analyzes the relationship between architecture and semiotics. Each social text (e.g., architecture) carries a series of messages by which codes and intertextual relationships are transmitted to the audience. These signs are encoded by the creator, and then the reader (or audience) attempts to decode and define the text (architecture) based on social contracts, mental impressions, and personal points of view. Semiotics deals with two perspectives, namely, structuralist and post-structuralist. Structuralist semioticians perceive a direct relationship between text and meaning. By contrast, post-structuralist semioticians consider an indirect relationship between text and meaning and seek implicit meaning and intertextual relationships. This study compares architecture reading (text) based on the abovementioned perspectives after considering the theories of semioticians. The architecture is composed of several layers of meaning. The meanings float within the layers of design and are metaphoric, ironic, reflective, and non-finite. The reading of the architecture semiotics seeks to reproduce the design based on the relationship between the layers and audience’s impressions.