Semiotics: Sign and Symbols

INTRODUCTION
Semiotics

• is the study of meaning-making or Interpretation of signs, the study of sign processes and meaningful
communication.
• This includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor,
symbolism, signification, and communication.
• Ferdinand de Saussure (“so-SIR”) (1857-1913) “It is possible to conceive of a science which studies the role of
signs as part of social life. It would form part of social psychology, and hence of general psychology. We shall call
it semiology. It would investigate the nature of signs and the laws governing them.”
• Signs and symbols can be studied, not only in language (both written and spoken forms), but also in rituals,
culture, images and art – in fact, anything that can be ‘read’.

• Basically, semiotics is the study of signs and their meanings! Signs include words, gestures, images, sounds, and
objects.
• Saussure and American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce brought the term into awareness and are thus
called as the founders of Semiotics
KEY TERMS

• Denotation - What we actually see… The surface meaning.

• Connotation - What you associate with this image… The deeper or hidden meanings and associations or
INTERPRETATIONS

Denotation (meaning):

1. Text "Fight Cancer" Motivation for women.

2. Strong black-white contrast. Woman because of long hair,
feminine face.
3. Woman looks to the left.
4. Holds sword.
5. Snakes attached to sword.

Connotation (deeper meaning):

• "Fight" seems to express masculine values.

• Masculinity also is expressed in the totalitarian style.
• Sword underlines fight & bravery. Looking to the left is looking
against reading direction; stresses fight against.
• Black-white contrast seems to stress good-bad duality.
• Picture of woman because this is an ad for women so, women
can identify. Snakes express symbol for medical profession.

Signifier: The suggestion of the

Signified: The idea or
word, gesture, Image, sound or
interpretation of what the
pattern that refers to a signified is relating too.
meaning – E.G., the gun and Therefore, makes the signified
the hand gesture are the the image od a gun is the
signifiers signified from the word gun or
the hand sign
Connotation: The feelings or Denotation: The primary or
ideas and cultural meaning, literal meaning of a word and
that is associated with a word not the feelings or ideas the
or object. The secondary or word conjures up the image of
non-literal meaning of the a gun is detonated from the 2
word, E.G., death is associated signifiers
with a gun.
Semiotic messages in architecture

Semiotics: study of signs, the study of signs and symbols of all kinds, what they mean, and how they relate to the things
or ideas they refer to

Communication: Particularly nonverbal communication

Subliminal Message: any message delivered beneath the human conscious threshold of perception. A subliminal
message may be visual (words or images flashed between the frames of a motion picture or television film) or aural (a
radio message broadcast constantly at very low volume)

Semantics: study of symbols: the study of the relationship between symbols and what they represent

“The form of the object must, besides making the function possible, denote that function clearly enough to make it
practicable as well as desirable”
In human perception, the urban architectural-and-spatial environment acts as a system of mutually replacing and
interacting emotional-aesthetic signs, symbols and images recognized in architectural bodies. This system causes and
determines the emotional-aesthetic, symbolic and figurative perception of the image of the world by man. Directly or
indirectly, all the object-spatial world surrounding man acts on him. At that, from 85 to 90 percent of information
about the surrounding world comes to humans by vision, while only 10-15 percent, by the senses of hearing, smell, touch
and kinesthetic feelings. (Barabanov, 1991, 1992, 1997).

If semiotics, beyond being the science of recognized systems of signs, is really to be a science studying all cultural
phenomena as if they were systems of signs—on the hypothesis that all cultural phenomena are, in reality, systems of
signs, or that culture can be understood as communication—then one of the fields in which it will undoubtedly find itself
most challenged is that of architecture. UMBERTO ECO, Semiotician and Architectural critic (Rethinking Architecture)

• Most architectural objects do not communicate (and are not designed to communicate), but function.
• Thus, Architectural objects communicate through their form and function accordingly.

ARCHITECTURE AS COMMUNICATION

A phenomenological consideration of our relationship with architectural objects tells us that we commonly do
experience architecture as communication, even while recognizing its Functionality.

Meanings of Windows
 What is the connection of the form and function?

• Through materialization in the architectural-spatial

environment, society leaves its anthropomorphic trace,
reflecting direct and indirect interrelations between man
and his environment, between human ideas, intentions,
bodies, human organism proper and the architectural
spatial environment, rich in volumes, shapes and
volumes.
• Even these interrelations manifest themselves in the
interaction of the signifier and the signified, with the
latter able to act both as a denotation and connotation
1. the ogive has a structural function, and the entire lofty and
elegant structure of a cathedral stands upon it, by virtue of
the miracle of equilibrium it allows
2. the ogive has no structural value, even if it gives the
opposite impression; rather, it is the webs of the ogival
vault that have the structural value;
3. the ogive had a structural value in the course of
construction, functioning as a sort of provisional
framework; later, the interplay of thrusts and
counterthrusts was picked up by the webs and by the other
elements of the structure, and in theory the ogives of the
cross vaulting could have been eliminated.

• Powerful stylobate underscored with rows of repeating steps, producing a general feeling of peace, satisfaction
and strength
• Bunches of vertical lines rush upwards, and line-vectors of the fluted columns converge above generating the
feeling of noble loftiness and exaltation,
 • At that, an ultimate feeling of strength, nobleness, reliance, exaltation and balance is born in the whole system

of interacting line vectors and shapes.

Form lines are the emotional-aesthetic signs personifying certain sensations, ideas, phenomena, human virtues and
culture, appearing as kind of substitutes to some.

• The combination of ideas as well as the different kinds of memory involved in the process of human
perception allows both the architect creator and the perceiving consumer, to reconstruct and create new
ideas.
• This is strongly dependent on subjective factors of perception, such as ability to aesthetic perception,
orientation to perception, emotional state, etc.
Application of Colors in Architecture
Color scheme should be based upon the certain concept and concept depends upon the nature of space. So, concepts
change for formal space or informal space; whether you want to have fresh effect or aged effect; whether you want to
have organized discipline or controlled chaos. The first considerations are the orientation of the room, existing finishes,
furniture and the artifacts to be placed in room.

In the absence of these, the importance should be given to unique things which are difficult to obtain such as piece of
art, marble for flooring, antique carpet because the variety of fabrics and paints is available in market in plenty. So, the
reverse order shall be more difficult to accomplish.

For planning a color scheme, we must consider three main components of shell –

• Walls, floors, ceiling

• Proportions of the room
• Balance of solids and voids
1. Walls, floors, ceiling People: feel more comfortable in room with light ceiling, medium walls and dark floors and it
corresponds to the color of sky, foliage and earth respectively.
2. Proportions of the room: If a room is too large, the effect can be subdued by using dark colors and complementary
color schemes. If the room is too small, it can be made to appear larger by the use of light colors and
monochromatic and analogous color schemes.
3. Balance of solids and voids: It determines the amount of light entering into a room. If a room lighted more than
the desired comfort level, then the effect can be subdued by use of dark colors. If amount of light entering into the
room is lesser than the desired level then the effect can be subdued by use of light colors. It depends on the extent
of windows in a room. Proportions of each color in a color scheme are also important. You have to balance entire
design scheme by use of light and dark colors. You have to identify the objects which are to be painted with light
color or dark color. So, smaller objects should be in dark colors. Choice of color scheme also depends upon the
nature of projects. For residential areas, harmonious color schemes (monochromatic or analogous) are preferred
and preferably cool colors are used on southern sides and little bit of warm colors are used on northern side (Indian
context).

For Health Centers, soothing colors are used with a little bit of warmth such as combination of off-whites and browns.

For Hotels and Restaurants bright and warm colors are used with complimentary color schemes. These colors are used
to provide stimulating and exciting effects. Examples: red, yellow, orange with complimentary colors.
For Nursery Schools, bright colors like red and yellow with complimentary color schemes are used which depicts
childhood.

• Red depicts childhood

• Yellow depicts youth
• Green depicts maturity
• Blue depicts old age Colors are also important for Exterior Façade.

Color concept for exterior façade depends upon the whether building should merge with surrounding or it should be
isolated with the surrounding. When building is to merge with surroundings, colors used are greens, light browns, blues
which are close to nature. For building which should be isolated from surrounding red, magenta colors are used. Larger
areas on facade should be painted with light colors with small horizontal bands painted in dark colors

• The form of the building itself suggests its mode of inhabitation or function.
• Its aesthetic properties like volume, mass, texture, material suggest the concept behind it.
• Several ancient to postmodernist architectural buildings have been purposefully designed to evoke certain
feelings into people’s mind

CODIFICATION
The principle that forms follows function might be restated: the form of the object must, besides making the function
possible, denote that function clearly enough to make it practicable as well as desirable, clearly enough to dispose one
to the actions through which it would be fulfilled.

Then all the ingenuity of an architect or designer cannot make a new form functional (and cannot give form to a new
function) without the support of existing processes of codification…

1. Technical codes: To this category would belong, to take a ready example, articulations of the kind dealt with in the
science of architectural engineering. The architectural form resolves into beams, flooring systems, columns, plates,
reinforced-concrete elements, insulation, wiring, etc. There is at this level of codification no communicative
‘content’, except of course in cases where a structural (or technical) function or technique itself becomes such;
there is only a structural logic, or structural conditions behind architecture and architectural signification
conditions that might therefore be seen as somewhat analogous to a second articulation in verbal languages,
where though one is still short of meanings there are certain formal conditions of signification.
2. Syntactic codes: These are exemplified by typological codes concerning articulation into spatial types (circular
plan, Greek-cross plan, ‘open’ plan, labyrinth, high-rise, etc.), but there are certainly other syntactic conventions to
be considered (a stairway does not as a rule go through a window, a bedroom is generally adjacent to a bathroom,
etc.).
3. Semantic codes: These concern the significant units of architecture, or the relations established between
individual architectural sign vehicles (even some architectural syntagms) and their denotative and connotative
meanings. They might be subdivided as to whether, through them, the units
a) denote primary functions (roof, stairway, window)
b) have connotative secondary functions (tympanum, triumphal arch, neo-Gothic arch) •
c) connote ideologies of inhabitation (common room, dining room, parlour); •
d) at a larger scale have typological meaning under certain functional and sociological types (hospital, villa,
school, palace, railroad station).

“Architecture is the art of wasting space.” Philip Johnson

Space and form are needed to:

1. prepare us for the change of mood

2. To establish relationships
3. To separate activities
4. To suggest or invite proper behavior
5. It creates settings to organize our lives, activates and relationships

In architecture, space does this to us without noticing.