Besides the thing itself, architecture concerns itself with two kinds of sign about it: iconic signs and symbols. Iconic signs resemble the thing itself. They are the plans and elevations and isometrics. The more symbolic architecture is that of language, the word, the logo and so forth. The postmodern turn shifted the emphasis from the iconic to the symbolic.
I think [Eyal] Weizman has created an architecture about a whole other kind of sign – the index.
— Public Seminar
"Indexical signs are traces of events: where there is smoke there is fire. The smoke does not resemble the fire. It is not an icon. Nor does it have a code like a symbolic sign system. Forensics is a matter of working backwards from the index to the event of which it is the sign, like in a detective story. A forensic architecture takes as its subject events that happen or don’t happen in build space, including the destruction of built space."
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This is a good article and helped me understand the relationship of geography as a discipline to architecture as a discipline better.
In the late 70's and early 80's (20th C) there was extensive flap about architecture as "language". This followed the early to mid-70's focus on architecture as "sign". After WWI it became impossible to speak about architecture as "symbol" due to the class-caste taboo following the late 19th C stew about architecture and "democracy". Linguistics is a valid study concerning how we communicate with words. Regardless of its discipline it cannot be called a science any more than can history, as a social study, due to certain aspects of immeasurability. Measurement and abstract reasoning are the key terms behind this essay with the caveat that, regardless of the early efforts by March, Steadman, Alexander and the succeeding CADD proliferation, no one has succeeded in turning (A)architecture into an algorithm. Not to say the bean counters of the "profession" and its real estate progenitors have not tried. There is a simple fact: A house is not a home. A house can be designed and built; but no flippant, eclectic design nor economic construct can make a home nor elemental aspects of a society; much less a "civilization". The extensive juggling act of "deconstruction", with respect to architecture, is yesterday's newspaper used as a wiping rag. To the point: What is being called here as "forensic" architecture, we used to call "case studies". Forensics, with respect to architecture, is the study of: 1. Why it did not work, as planned/designed. 2. Why it burned, cracked or fell down. Ugly and/or boring, are not on the list. It is not understood how architectural journalists use a rake as a schtick to embellish individual proclivities into a principled, philosophic element or movement. It must be a case of all the news that fits the print and educational to those who have no knowledge of history beyond last month's "Zine".
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