ABSTRACT
Charles Sanders Peirce’s theories about signs are not the most widely adopted amongst architectural scholars. Architects may be more familiar with theories linking architecture to signs through Structuralism, a movement in philosophy, psychology, linguistics and the arts that identify the structures underlying everyday phenomena. Ferdinand de Saussure illustrates how a sign works by showing how the word ‘tree’ refers to the concept of a tree, and he provides a simple diagram of a lone tree standing in a field. On the other hand, Peirce illustrates the working of the sign with a weathervane on the top of a building. The chapter shows that the differences that the emblematic examples bring to light. One of the advantages of Peirce’s approach to signs is that it addresses not only the idea that a work of architecture might operate as a sign system, but the broader issue of how architecture fits within communicative structures of all kinds.
