ABSTRACT
In postmodern discourses architecture has attained a new rank in the system of the fine arts. The nineteenth-century philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, exponent of cultural modernism, had attributed the lowest status to architecture on the grounds that it does not express fully the essence of the human spirit, but only prepares the external surrounding for the appearance of that spirit. In postmodern theory, on the contrary, it was precisely architecture that stood as model for the paradigmatic expression of the new cultural spirit. Charles Jencks, one will recall, explained postmodern style in architecture in terms of double coding. Indeed, double or, even better, multiple coding has become the hallmark of postmodern architecture.1
