Introducing Meaning in Architecture, now

Abstract

The connection between form and meaning has been so intrinsic that it has stayed mainly hidden for centuries. Then, around fifty years ago, the issue of meaning suddenly began storming in the architectural world, with many scholars and practitioners attempting to rebuild the fading link to the form. After the globalisation and the atomisation of thoughts of the last decades, debating the issue again could seem meaningless. The form is now a purely aesthetic feature or a counterfeit fetish for everchanging meanings. Yet, we continue to design, produce, and critique architecture, and attribute meanings, intentions, and hopes to its forms. We want, once more, to discuss and explore the elusive but, at the same time, inescapable connection between meaning and architecture.