ABSTRACT
In reiterating the research methodology at play in this book, the conclusion suggests a number of research directions that can be extrapolated from this study as well as practical applications of Baudrillard’s so-called symbolic exchange. The conclusion advances the centrality of architecture to Baudrillard’s philosophical endeavours, thus positing the origin of his most compelling theoretical achievements within the analysis of the built environment. In this respect, it suggests that simulation is given birth with the invention of the perspective window during the Italian Renaissance, and so is space as we know it. An outcome of the reconfiguration of appearances, space is disintegrating alongside our notion of reality. Consequently, subjectivity and vision are being reconfigured too. Based on a genealogical approach focusing on the origin of the fourth order simulation from World War Two onwards, the conclusion proposes that simulation is just the developmental stage of the concept of ambience at a point where the notions of semiurgy and code have not yet been fully integrated. Finally it stresses that Baudrillard’s rhetorical strategy allows myriad interpretations, so readers are invited to decipher and challenge his work creatively.
