ABSTRACT
Squares are either designed for a specific purpose or acquire that purpose through a later conscious design decision or as unself-consciously determined by their users. Any square can serve a multiplicity of purposes. A flat surface affords many different behaviors, active and passive, as a casual glance at almost any square soon reveals. Squares can, nevertheless, be differentiated from one another in terms of their instrumental functions – the activities they actually serve as places and as links. We regard these purposes as their basic functions. The two functions are not independent but overlap; sometimes they are contradictory. Later we discuss the advanced functions that squares can serve as symbols. 1
