ABSTRACT
In order to evaluate the possible cultural roles of architecture, we have to consider the complex and ambivalent nature of architecture as a scientific discipline. The ambiguous character of this nature was revealed during Modernity through a competing double claim. On the one hand, architecture has to deal with materials and structural technology, in order to build a solid system in space intending to serve human needs. On the other hand, this functional-material-structural order must express immaterial ideas and symbolic meanings, so as to communicate intellectual superstructures, social values, cultural identities, ethical worldviews. This double claim produces tensions, controversies and culturally determined conceptual dualities within the discipline of architecture.
