Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning

Architecture and Narrative is the result of several years of research on the relationship between geometrical patterns we grasp at once, and spatial patterns we understand through the sequential unfolding of information as our bodies pass through space.

Analysing selected examples of buildings the book argues that meaning depends on the ways in which these two types of properties relate to each other. Aside to cultural meaning that is spatially constructed, meaning is created by other forms of social knowledge, such as the social values and systems of thought that are implicated in architecture and its production.

In arguing these points, the book makes two distinctive contributions: first, it bridges between the morphological study of space, and the study of geometry and composition; and second, it links morphological research with history and theory. Although research examples exist that cross these boundaries, the fragmentation of architectural scholarship into these domains has led to separate research genealogies and traditions. This fragmentation limits the understanding of how architecture relates to society as social as well as intellectual practice.

A separate section in the book is devoted to the analysis of the literary works of Jorge Luis Borges. It draws an analogy between architecture and literature founded on the shared characteristics of structure and sequence. Like buildings, literature possesses formal patterns that link the units of information unfolding in sequence into a structural pattern. The relation between these two levels of properties contributes to a broader understanding of the construction of meaning beyond the specific exigencies of content in a text or in a building programme, and across symbolic media.