Intentions in Architecture

Norberg-Schulz is a practicing architect ;his buildings stand in several countries;and he elucidates the nature of architectural reality with a practiced eye and from a practicalviewpoint. Although the methods and theory that his book develops are uncompromisingly rigorous andtightly formed, they are everywhere related to actual building, through specific examples andthrough the use of over 100 photographs.The structure that Norberg-Schulz has fashioned is surelyone of the most impressive intellectual edifices that any architect has ever produced. The materialsthat are organically worked into it include Gestalt psychology, the mechanics of perception,information theory, modern analytic philosophy, and in particular, linguistic analysis, and thegeneral theory of signs and symbols. The result, however, is not an eclectic hodge-podge ;all thesematerials have their place and purpose ;none is applied extraneously for "show" or purely decorativeeffect. And all this divergent material had to be joined according to plan within formal bounds inorder to produce a theory with equally divergent applications: one that can treat not only of theaesthetics of architecture but equally well of its social, psychological, and cultural effects.Thechief focus of the book is on the symbolic and linguistic. The purpose is to develop an integratedtheory of architectural description and architectural intention (and this includes the intention ofthe user as well as that of the designer), insofar as architecture is an art.