Supercritical Retrospective: Architecture, a Matter of Words

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the first of a series of texts examining the contemporary importance of architecture words juxtaposed to our visually saturated environment. This subject essay revisits and articulates the significance of words and their enduring relevance that differentiates architecture from empty form and meaningless fabrications.

Architecture isn’t restricted solely to its visible form but extends beyond the physical building, participating in cultural production. Architecture creates a context for us to think. Architecture differentiates itself from construction through its ideas, not necessarily through constructed form. Architecture words are a matter of mind and meaning inherent to spatial significance, this differentiation being critical to the discipline of architecture and its discourse.

Architecture’s semiosis, independent of any particular movement or style, communicates meaning and provides context for critical thought. The historic investigation of architectural thinking and cultural production of architecture and its discourse leads us back to a text, so that the language of architecture contains information and ideas caused and authored by an architect. An architecture void of meaning, an empty construct that fails to participate in cultural production, threatens random assemblies and meaningless forms. Architecture ideas and words remain relevant in the making of architecture. Architecture words form content and score a narrative for a meaningful architecture.