Meaning in architecture; Quotes

“…every act, object and statement that man perceives is meaningful (even “nothing”) and […] the frontiers of meaning are always, momentarily, in state of collapse and paradox.”
― Charles Jencks, Meaning in architecture;

“Once when walking – “A French colleague turned to me suddenly and pointed toward the spire of a cathedral which had just come into view: ‘Jetez un coup d’oeil sur cette fléche!’ the glance was painfully exquisite; literally, ‘Throw a blow of eye on top of that spire!’ I could suddenly see my eyeball wrenched from its socket and thrown across the field to be impaled on that pin-sharp point. But my companion was completely laconic. He had just meant ‘look at that spire’ and no such ludicrous sensations were reverberating through his head, because to him the metaphor was almost dead. The signs which were deeply embedded in the French language were partially asleep and inaccessible to him. Whereas to myself suddenly they were awake in that raw state of freshness, even wetness, of the newly born.”
― Charles Jencks, Meaning in architecture;

“The act of posting a letter would become too complex with significance: a walk down the stair-way, over the door-stop, on to the side-walk, across the pave-ment and over to the mail-box. Common objects would dissolve into their primal states, each having an independent life.”
― Charles Jencks, Meaning in architecture;

“This is perhaps the most fundamental idea of semiology and meaning in architecture: the idea that any form in the environment, or sign in language, is motivated, or capable of being motivated. It helps to explain why all of a sudden forms come alive or fall into bits. For it contends that, although a form may be initially arbitrary or non-motivated as Saussure points out, its subsequent use is motivated or based on some determinants. Or we can take a slightly different point of view and say that the minute a new form is invented it will acquire, inevitably, a meaning.”
― Charles Jencks, Meaning in architecture;

“…semiologists would agree is that one simply cannot speak of “meaning” as if it were one thing that we can all know or share. The concept meaning is multivalent, has many meanings itself…”
― Charles Jencks, Meaning in architecture;

“…the nausea due to misunderstanding a language, the fear due to unfamiliarity with a style, the conflict of generations, are all mild examples of sign shock.”
― Charles Jencks, Meaning in architecture;