ABSTRACT
When the architect plays with or creates symbols, and in particular with the use of the human body, he plays consciously towards a purpose; the purpose is not the symbol itself but the very consciousness of humans themselves. In Oldenburg's London Knees 1966 (1968) case study, the human body, through fashion, becomes for the artist a symbol of the city. It also addresses the conceptual and commercial mechanisation of the human body through fashion. The case of Santiago Calatrava's the L'Hemisfèric/The Planetarium as part of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences anglicised), situated in Valencia in Spain, was examined as an example of how the human body could become a global symbol of human thought; it also revealed the mechanisation of the building as a primitive step to the creation of the gadget/cyborg or intellectual building.
