The concept of meaning and its understanding process in Architecture

Subject Areas : architecture

Mostafa Abbaszadegan ¹ , Abbas Zekri ²

1 - Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Department of Architectural, Iran University of Science and Technology. Tehran, Iran.
2 - Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture & Art, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran.

Received: 2011-05-09 Accepted : 2012-10-15 Published : 2014-08-23

Keywords: Meaning, reference, denotation, Interpretation, semantic, hermeneutics,

Abstract :

Meaning is a basic and key concept in Architecture, which due to its widespread use and its generality, needs recognition from architectural viewpoint. Since not all aspects and perspectives of architectural ontology have been studied well and also according to the high appliance of the word »meaning« and its extensive fundamental and appliance and also since it is highly applied in all conversations and different fields particularly architecture; it can be concluded that semantic concept of meaning is the most basic necessity in recognition of this word. Therefore, it is tried to semantically study meaning in this essay based on the valid Persian and English dictionaries. According to the history of meaning, the study can be started from philosophy of Greece and it can be followed regarding philosophers of middle ages up to recent philosophers because the philosophy deals with meaning as a conceptual research. Since one of the most important principles of language is defined as »to scrutinize meaning and how to realize and understand them«. It is tried to introduce the theories that leads to philosophy of language in this research like the theories which are suggested by recent philosophers like Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein in the field of language. Consequently, the nature of meaning has been analyzed in the framework of semantic theory.  Interpretation, in fact, is understanding meaning; for this purpose, interpretation is conducted through analysis of formal and conceptual patterns and is concluded in importance of findings for interpretation of the text. What is important in interpretation and is considered in the theories of hermeneutic Scientifics and makes the interpretation useful is studying the two main issues in the process of understanding: First issue is our ability to understand the text as an interpreter. No interpreter can understand something just from nothing and then forms it. Everybody who wants to know more about a subject has a general understanding. The meaning of building is studied within its context. There is a relation between the denotation of text on meaning with denotative rules or semantic knowledge but the tool which makes denotation useful is interpretation which is conducted through hermeneutics and it is done by the interpreter. The semantic knowledge refers to the language but interpretation means what which is done by the person who understands the text and makes the denotation the source of effect that is the result of semantic knowledge. Therefore, interpretation means understanding meaning and essence of each text. Second is our familiarity with possibilities and data of language. This point is approved by the language level of interpretation because text can convey information and become meaningful only by use of interpretation. It is important to know that no text can convey the information unless with a familiar language for other person. Therefore, in order to convey the information of text properly by interpretation, a proper language should be found. Finally, according to the mentioned information in semantic and hermeneutic fields, the process of understanding meaning in architecture is declared as conclusion.