Frances to Armando...
Any architectural object can be built to resemble some other
object. As a sign this kind of architecture would be a formal
icon of mimetic similarity, but this sort of semiotic fact need
not bear any significant impact on architecture or its theory. It
seems to me that architecture as a causal index of cathartic
contiguity would however be more significant. If a zoo is built
for example to house lions and naturally resembles their native
environment and habitat, then that building is also an icon, but
it is furthermore a causal index, which sheer indexicity seems to
be much more important for architecture than mere iconicity; and
of course out of iconicity and indexicity there may additionally
emerge significant symbolicity. All architecture in any event is
mainly an artifactual indicative index of only humans, because
nonhuman mechanisms or organisms likely cannot usher in
architectures. Indexes also entail ongoing continuity, which
perhaps indicates the importance to architecture of its
evolutionary history. Perhaps these few points turning on signs
and humans as some key conditions for architecture might make
their way into a definitive theory of architecture.
