1.

4 The Sociology of Semiology Xavier Rubert de Ventas

This is a revised and edited version of Part Two of Utopias de la Sensuidad y Methodos de/
Sentido. Barcelona, Anagrama.

Abstract

This paper contains, in the first place, a summarized descrip.

tion and a sociological analysis of two attitudes which are

nowadays usual in the study of signs. This presentation is

followed by a hypothesis about the social and psychological

background to which the current inflation of sciences

related to information, communication, signs, and signifiers

correspond. It ends with the consideration of the signifiers,

not only as indicators, but also as provocators of what they

signify-which I call semiology-action.

1 Introduction

Two preliminary remarks.

First, in speaking about semiology in Spain there is little innovation and even less arbitrariness.
Spain is, we should remember, a deeply semiological country, at least at a consumer level.

The romantics·, who, as the first tourists to visit us, invented Sµain, consumed us as a sign. We
were the 'sign' of everything that the emerging capitalist society, based on normalization,
rational exploitation, and foresight, could no longer permit itself. The sign of adventure, passion,
danger, and exoticism.

But, if they consumed us-and they still do-as signs of 'nature', we have nowadays begun to
consume their signs as 'culture'. As Aranguren observed, we live too far removed politically,
scientifically, and culturally from where 'things' happen to be able to participate in them, but
also too close to be able to ignore them and permit our reality to produce its own independent
superstructures. Thus, we do not know what the 'things that happen' are, but we are perfectly
aware of what they mean. We know what cybernetics, ecology, or counter-culture mean. We
even know whether they are reactionary or progressive, and whether they are still valid or
already surpassed. What we hardly ever know is what they are. We do not have the opportunity
to touch them or pracise them; only that of consuming the news of their birth and death. We
live, as the football fans do with their teams, the birth and overcoming of cultural myths; what
is certain, however, is that we cannot get our hands on the ball.

As you may thus see, Spain is, actively or passively, a deeply semiological country: a country in
which semiology appears in a 'practical state', precisely because we do not practise the effective
contents to which these cultural formations correspond.

Second, to construct a 'sociology of semiology' may seem, in a certain respect, perverse since
semiological analysis, at least in one of the two aspects we will discuss, is characterized
precisely by the rejection of a sociological perspective. We are thus going to apply a sociological
approach to a method that defines itself, among other things, by the rejection of such a point of
view.

We should remember, however, that a similar perversion is responsible for the most suggestive
of the so-called struc.turalist methods. And since the cleverness of the structuralists was to
analyse historical phenomena from a systematic and ahistorical perspective, we can give them a
taste of their own medicine by sociologically studying their own approach. I have argued
somewhere else that to con.struct a sociology of sociological theories is not a redundant
activity. I hope I will show now that to fashion a sociology of anti-sociological theories is not a
gratuitous perversion either.

Having made those points clear, now, before doing a sociological analysis, I must describe the
core of the methodological utopia in question.

1. From a formal point of view, structuralism is a method that insists upon the immanent,
systematic, classificatory aspects of its subject-matter. It does not authorize us to leave the
study of the relations within a given level, ex.cept for the purpose of penetrating in search of
the code, of which these relations are an actualization. And this is precisely that which
distinguishes this approach from the classical positivist one. One has not to take the
phenomena one is studying-religion, suicide rates, or marriage systems-as things but as words,
that is, as the r suit of a language or basic code of which these things are products; the language
from which we speak, the un.conscious from which we think, th system of kinship from which
we marry one another As in linguistics, one has to aim towards th codes we use without
expressly thinking about them. The structuralist wtll then attempt to describe and discover
these codes, and, if possible, for.malize them by means of a model. The discussion as to
whether these 'deep rules' which the structuralist intends to reproduc are ontological realities
or simple methodological instruments, may have given philosophers entertainment, an occasion
to declare themselves more or less metaphysical or operational, but it is irrelevant in our
context

2. From a material point of view, this systematic attitude does not apply to systems of objects-
such as systems for budding, political systems, etc worked out in the Enlightenment in the eight
enth century, but to systems of signif,ers

Thus, we could provisionally define our method as: an im.manent and systematic study of the
signiliers in the search for their code

Because of their different sociological significance, I shall analyse th se two aspects separately;
(a) the formal character of the plan that def 1nes what has come to be called structuralism, and
(b) the sem,c character of 1ls obiect of study, to which the specifically sem1olog1cal studies
refer.

2 The Chaste Study of the Signifiers

To summarize the culturalist European trend of struc.turalism, I am going to coin two new
terms-'pos1tionalism' and ' speleologism 1 -whose first virtue, it must be said, is not legance.

Positionalism 'It's the position that decid s the victory', wrote Jean Paul, 'wh ther we consider
battles or phrases' The meaning of something lies, above all, in the position 1t occupies within
the system where it is found. Faced with a rite, a form of interchange, an architectural form, a
myth, a belief, a menu, what the researcher should not do is to attempt a sociolog1cal-
funct1onal1st interpretation of its meaning (i.e deer-hunting has become ritualized because it
concerns a scarce animal, vital for the survival of the group. ), nor should he give us an
explanation of the phenomenon's supposed historical origin (e g. it is a

Signs, Symbols and Architectur~ 1

degeneration of the cult of the god of fertility ... ). What he should do, instead, is to make a
general outline of the system (of beliefs, foods, etc.), where this particular formation is in.serted
and of which it is one of the possibilities. The deer cult should be studied, for example, in a
systematic relation to the cult of the jaguar and in symmetrical opposition to the corn
(maize)/peyote pair in the Huicholes ritual. Raw food should be studied in relation to the
'system' it forms together with cooked, boiled, fried, smoked, rotten, etc., food.

In this way, taking a witch-doctor from a primitive society (or an everyday doctor), I can
immediately interpret what his role and social function are, but I would certainly be mistaken if,
as Bourdieu pointed out, I did not place him be.tween the prophet and the priest and study him
in relation to them. The Prophet as a bearer of new subversive charismatic messages; the Priest
as the natural enemy of the prophet, conserver of the established spiritual order; the Witch-
doctor as an ally of the first one whose 'signs' he interprets. And, what is more, this system of
relation-oppositions, inasmuch as it is 'structural', is transportable and can give an account of
the system which, in the restricted world of the arts and culture, the Artist (prophet), the
Professor (priest) as con.server of the 'established culture', and the Avant-garde critic (witch-
doctor) maintain nowadays.

Whether we speak, then, about the witch-doctor, about the critic, or about the rite of deer-
hunting, to try to interpret correctly their function means to discover their position in a system.
The first lesson we can get out of this is that signifiers cannot be taken and interpreted
separately, but only have meaning from and within a system.

In architecture, design, or urbanism, it is easy to find ex.amples of this necessity for a systematic
study. Not long ago,

R. Barthes insisted that the concept and function of what we call periphery or suburb should be
understood in relation to its opposition with the centre, with the famous 'heart of the city'. So,
apart from its opposition at the level of social classes, it is evident that the periphery is the
place for in.dividuality, intimacy, the home; the centre is that for management, movement,
anonymity. At the time of the emergence of cities, the Germans said that· Die Staadtluft macht
frei-the air of the city makes free. This is a well.known truth for the inhabitants of small villages,
who find in the city a paradise of liberty which can only exist on the basis of a loss of individual
identity.

Espeleologism. A family isolated and without friends in.evitably reinforces its internal ties
(whether these are positive or negative is another question). If, faced with a significant piece of
information, I stop myself, for methodological reasons, from studying its external aspects
(historical: where does it come from; sociological: what rela.tion does it have with the social
structure; psychological: with what intention is this information emitted), the only thing left for
me to study will be the relationship of this piece of information to other pieces of the same
family, and this study will simply direct my attention to the common root-the father, the code-
where they all originate. Since it is not permitted for data or facts to walk, or swim, or fly, it is
clear that the only recourse left to them is to become part of the search for the system of forms,
beliefs, objects, etc., from which (or out of which) we behave, think, or speak.

In other words, it was inevitable that the rejection of historical-social-psychological approaches

would point to the only non-obstructed way out that of the codes or archaeological origins; that
of the places where thinking or doing produce themselves. It can hardly be surprising, then, if
we find a natural sympathy between late structuralist philosophers and Heidegger-the constant
and fastidious searcher for the unsaid in what is said, for the unthought in
what is thought.

It was for the same reason, on the other hand, that

methodological inspiration was ·sought in linguistics.

Linguistics, and especially syntactical and phonetical

studies, made it possible to define a language according to a reduced nun:iber of relationships,

and it is precisely that which is attempted now in other social phenomena. Gram.mar was,
furthermore, along with logic, a theoretical body developed in order to mention* and analyse
that very same thing which we use in speaking: language itself. Linguistics thus offered a model
to refer to the code, or message generator, without having to get out of the system itself.

It is precisely this possibility of speaking about a theme 'from within' which initiated the move
to find the 'source' in linguistics. In linguistics it seemed possible to be faithful to the notorious
'principle of immanence' -a principle of methodological 'chastity' or 'continence' -which
satisfied the profoundly puritanical aspirations of the so-called struc.turalists. And this is what
those who criticized the 'extra.polation' of linguistic methods into their disciplines.psychology,
theory of architecture, etc.-have fail.ed to see. They did not understand that when calling for a
formal linguistic-,-or mathematical-method, one is always hoping to be able to analyse one's
own field without stepp.ing out of it. On the other hand, critics of the 'linguistic ex.trapolation'
themselves use equally 'imported' con.cepts-they speak about the 'function' of an institution or
about social 'organism' as though these terms have become so normal as to be considered
autochthonous products. More popish than the Pope, they still insist that architectural

*Translator's note: 'mention' here is used in the Wittgensteinian sense.

theory, for instance, should not draw on the concept of func.tion (which is an organic or
mathematical concept) or on that of form (which is an aesthetic concept) but on the very
strict.ly architectural one of type. I imagine that, with the same kind of logic, a physicist would
be able to say: 'The starting.point of physics must be internally physical, not mathematical. We
must cement the foundations of our building from really autonomous bases.'

And you will observe that I am not, in the least, defending the 'structural method' or the use of
linguistic models, but rather, criticizing the near-sightedness of those who had wished to
consider themselves purer than the very method whose first axiom was the principle of chastity
(purity).

2.1 Criticism of Sociologism, Historicism, and Intuitive Empiricism

The structuralist method thus opposes other methodologies that seek to understand things
from external principles of in.telligibility. Let us now look at three examples of such
methodologies and the arguments which have been used against them.

1. From a sociologist's point of view, to understand a phenomenon means to understand the

social context out of which it comes, and of which it is a product. The struc.turalists would not
deny these facts, but would like to insist that the influence of this social context over the
phenomenon is neither purely causal nor linear; that, in any case, its effects can only be
understood from what we know about the system through which it operates. The knowledge or
understanding of the social 'humus' of a phenomenon is not, in itself, a sufficient 'principle of
intelligibility' of that phenomenon.

Let us choose a striking example. A punch has different ef.fects according to the system of tissue
to which it is applied: in the eye, the shock results in a haematoma (bruise); in the stomach, it
becomes asphyxiation. The structure of the 'receptor' system-eye or stomach-changes the effect
radically. It is not enough, then, to explain something by the fist that caused it; one has to pay
attention to the systems which the punch effected.

And, in the same way, one could argue about any other ex.ternal factor ('punch factor) by
means of which a phenomenon wants to be explained It is clear, for example, that the social
transformations that took place during the Renaissance influenced painting, but they influenced
it only insofar as they were assimilated by the system of painting; that is, transforming altar
paintings into canvas paintings, working out (the) linear perspective in order to express an
anthropocentric vision of the world in art, or discovering oil paint in order to express the little,
domestic, everyday things of which the budding Dutch middle class was so proud. Of course,
the social crisis of the sixteenth century influenced architecture, but only so far as to incite and
transform the architectural language of the Renaissance. The 'unitarian' tendencies noticeable
in political life may be observed in architecture through the use (and, obviously, abuse) that
Michelangelo makes of the classic rules: using for the buildings in the Piazza del Capitolino Ionic
columns on each floor and a Doric column linking the two levels. With this, the elementarism of
Renaissance construction began to be substituted by the more global and unitarian concept of
architecture we find in Sant' Andrea del Quirinale or Sant' lvo alla Sapienza.

2. The criticism of historicism is not very different from this. It is not enough to appeal to the
Counter-Reformation or to the Holy Alliance in order to explain the baroque style, just as it is
not enough to refer to just one variable to explain a revolution or a historical 'take-off'. Even
within the Marxist tradition, Althusser has had to ackr:iowledge that the dependence of the
political superstructure on the relation.ships of production is not so simple or linear.

Only by understanding the system as a whole is it possible to explain such phenomena as the
surprising triumph of Marxist revolution, against all 'classical' prognostication, in such an
industrially underdeveloped country as Russia. This was due, according to Althusser, to the
coincidence of a series of factors (a capitalist economy based on the maxi.mization of benefits-
itself based upon a still agrarian, feudal structure-the oppressive effects of the two systems
being added together; an intellectual class uprooted from the rest of society and vulnerable to
modern ideas pro.ceeding from Europe; an ecclesiastical class removed from its function of
caring for spiritual health and social immobili.ty in each parish, etc.) which made Russia the
weakest 'link' within the capitalist countries. In the second place, the work.ing together of this
series of factors is not I inear, either. Its efficiency has to be understood as 'metonymical
causality'; that is to say, it does not affect, as L. Goldman has shown, any given superstructural
formation alone, but the entire system jointly, thus requiring a new organization of that system.

And it is here that the structuralist approach performs its most spectacular pirouette in arguing
that not only does history not explain the systematic historical phenomena, but that history
itself needs to be understood-and is, in fact, always understood-as a system. 1 It is not only that
history does not explain things, but that history itself is to be ex.plained and justified from out
ide Thus we should think that there are many histories· informative histories that give us a lot of
facts about kings or battles and comprehensive histories weaker in facts, but which convey to us
the 'mean.ing either real or supposed, of the American revolution or the dictatorship of
Pisistrato.

And what is more, when just barely forced towards one or another of the two extremes, history
becomes something else If we tudy historical events hour after hour, they will end up seeming
to be psychological processes of the in.dividuals who made decision • 1f we study them by
every 10 000 year the will end up seeming like geological pro.cesses-movements of peoples, in
effect, do not seem (nor are the\) very different from movements of icebergs or the receding of
the glaciers

Max Weber. Joan Robinson and Levi-Strauss have ex.plained the neolithic and bourgeois
revolutions on the assumpt' on that. in order to understand a historical change', it 1s necessary
to understand the structure of the situation from which it springs as a historic 'cut' or section.
According to the latter, in order to understand the two great 'jumps' that have happened rn
history-the neolithic revolution and the Industrial Revolution-one must analyse the synergy
im.pl ing· (a) scientific knowledge, (b) technological progress. (c) ecological balance (d)
availability of labour, etc The economist Joan Robinson tries in the same way to explain the
bourgeois revolution as an incidence of factors (not inde.pendent but neither absolutely
interdependent) such as: (a) industrial development, (b) capitalization, (c) instruments of
political control etc But It was Max Weber who first ex.plained how the development of
capitalism had been possi.ble only by the concurrence at a given moment, of a series of factors,
among them: (a) technological progress, (b) ex.istence of 'free' labour (c) modern State, (d)
puritan ethic, (e) traff Ic security, (f) rational law (g) rational accounting based on the use of
arabic digits (numbers). etc The appearance of arabic digits, e g 4, 5. 6, 7, 8 instead of the
classical numbers IV V, VI, VII, VIII, was a decisive factor in favouring the cost-benefit calculations
that the new system demanded. (Try for instance, to add DCCLXIX and DLCLCI IX.) To such a
degree were these cyphers a new and useful instrument that the residual medieval gremIa
considered their use as 'unfair competition', prohibiting and everely punishing it

And why not indulge in s me 'past fiction making in the face of the current inflation of
'futurology? One could give a tempting explanation of Columbus's discovery of America as the
result of a happy conjunction of 'gastronomic scIen.tif Ic, pol it1cal, and religious factors

(a)The gastronomic need to obtain spices-which were vital at a time when there were no other
means of preserving

food-made access to the Far East urgent, while migra.tions and political changes in the Near
East blocked a route that the Crusades (essentially 'gastronomic' in themselves) had failed to
clear.

(b)The development of scientific knowledge-Coper.nicus-allowed for the emergence of the idea

that it was possible to reach the Far East the other way around the Earth.

(c) The religious and political ideology of the Catholic kings of Spain fostered a project which
implied a response to the challenge of the Turkish Empire.

However this might be, it is only the interdependent and 'synergetic' arrangement of the factors
which has ex.planatory force. Egyptian land-measuring would never have become geometry
without the incidence of the Greek theoria that gave rise to speculative formulations of the
Pythagorean type. Lacking the technologically appropriate instruments, the Alexandrians were
not able to produce a true scientific revolution, in the sense of Kuhn, out of their knowledge of
'Copernican' astronomy. Because of the lack of labour, the knowledge of the wheel by the
Aztecs-or of the steam engine by the Greeks-was only used in the con.struction of toys.

3. But this criticism of sociological profundities and historical transcendencies does not imply a
defence of the immediate and perceptible world. The true reality of a code is not seen from the
points of view of sociology or of history alone, but neither can you perceive it at first sight, as
the defendants of the primacy of sensible intuition would like us to believe.

A clear example of this argument (without any connection whatsoever, for the rest, with the
structuralist ideology) is that of the famous article by Alexander, A City is not a Tree. We are
told, in it, that the determining factors of the grace, charm, and spirit of classical cities cannot
be recovered in modern town planning either (a) by optimization studies of accessibility,
visibility, and so on, or (b), as Jane Jacobs and many inspired urbanists would have us believe, by
proposing cities that would have to be a mixture of Greenwich Village and Italian piazza, Calle
Mayor and casbah.

No. What gave charms to those cities was not their ra.tional structure nor their 'typism', which
obviously is a pro.duct of our melancholic regarding of them. Those qualities must be
discovered on the level of the 'profound structure' of a city. The elements of each stratum-
residential zone, commercial zone, administrative zone-were not separated and related only
through the intervention of a superior hierarchy as in our modern cities, but they were related
among themselves and overlapped with the domains of a superior or inferior range in the
hierarchy Only by understanding the structure of the classical city as a formal system of
relationships-like a 'semi-lattice' in contrast with the 'arbor' (tree-like) system of current cities-
will we be able to understand the visual and sensual charm of its volumes and spaces. It is in
this sense that a structural analysis suggests that in order to understand the visual and sensorial
qualities we cannot limit ourselves to the level of the effects, but must rather look for the code
that makes them possible. The emulation of free picturesque and folkloric qualities are
urbanistic practices that, while at.tempting to overcome the schematicism of the rationalists'

plan, are, in fact, just the other side of the coin.

2.2 The Sociological Approach to Structuralist

'Ideology': Metaphysical Superstructuralism Naturalism and

What does and to what this positionalist-speleological principles does it respond? thinking
mean,

Michael Foucault has suggested that it is a way of thinking characterizing a certain period of
time; a way of under.standing what understanding is; an 'epistemological framework' within
which we are placed, as in the sixteenth century people thought from and within 'analogy', and
in the eighteenth century from and within 'taxonomy'

In the sixteenth century, to understand something was to percieve its analogy with something
else. Art was symbolic.analogical; economic value was understood in relationship to the land.
The eighteenth century substituted order for analogy; to know something was, then, to put it
into a classification, just as Linnaeus did with biological species. Art was also orderly and
academic Value was understood as a universal sign and mercantilist economists attempted to
'order' the national economy by establishing a favourable commercial balance. The nineteenth
century brought with it another radical change· thought was not based now on 'analogy' nor on
'ordering' but on the concepts of life and history to understand something was to comprehend
its origin and its 'organic' evolution Thus, classical 'Natural History' became 'Biology', 'General
Grammar 'Philology', and the 'Theory of Wealth' 'Economics'. Ricardo and Marx, Dilthey and
Nietzsche are all typical exponents of this break. Today, at last, we are entering the stage of the
System. to understand something 1s to find out the system within which it acquires sense. And
this stage, obviously, must contain the crisis of historicism and the 'death of man' who, from
now on, is no longer a privileged and transparent reality but a phenomenon to be explained, as
any other, within the system

of relationships from which it has emerged According to this line of thought Fou ault h1m.,c If in
his Archaeology of Knowledg defines I I d1scours not as an expression of himself as a subJect,
but as grafted into th field of nunc1a.tion determined by the d1spN-,1on and discontinuity of its
subiect'

I have limited myself to noting the 'interprPtation' of Foucault his obsession for synchrony ('the
history of knowledg can only be written in the t rms of t contem.porary context'), h1! disguised
Hegelianism, m which the no.tion of 'd1alect1cal progress' 1s ubstituted by a sort of 'j rk.ing
ep1phan1 m' jus ac; wholistic as Hegel'. was But a critical con ,d ration of his view of historical
'dynamics', and of his 'metaphysics', des rve a separate study. 2

Instead of doing this criticism, I will put forth what I understand to be the meaning of the
epistemological and on.tolog1< al 'systemat1sm' of the structuralist's approach

The structuralist r volt against existentialisms, histonc1sms, and v1talisms seems to me to be

analogous, on a formal level, to the reaction of literary naturalism against romantic m

In a country wedding, for example, a romantic would talk about thE spirit of the pE·ople who
sing and dance, who are linked to their land by very ancient roots, who put on their 'Sunday bes
especially for today, etc If besides being a romantic, he 1s Germdn or Catalan, he would
certainly speak to us of the 'community' (Cemeinschaft) that thes people make up, so distinct
from mere society (Cesel/schaft); of their common 'spirit' (Volkgeist), tc If he 1s modern and
French, lik Sartre, he will try to show the difference between mere aggregation and inPrt s riality
(a m the bu queue) on the on hand, and a group def med by a common and shared pur.pose
(the popular wedding party, or, for Sartre, the revolu.tionary squad).

Confronted with th same wedding, a naturalist like Flaubert simply wrot • 'their ears appeared
more separated from their heads than usually'. This i , at first sight, a very unsettling r mark,
something like a surrealist 'boutade' but soon we discover that it encompasses a literal
description of the observed reality On Sundays and holidays, actual y, it always seems as •f
people in villages have their ears bigger and more s rarated from the head, because they have
been to the barb r's on Saturday. What Flaubert and the naturalists intended-and later, even
more radically, the authors of the Nouveau Roman-was to raise a notarial act or bill of what was
seen, putting in parentheses whatever considerations concerned the sense, origin or
transcendence of : . 'To achieve what is real', we are reminded, again by Levi-Strauss, 'one mus
repudiate, above all, that which has been lived, with the arm of reintegrating it in an objective

synthesis drained of all sentimentality.' This is true, however, Sartre replies in his last book
about Flaubert, only if we do not forget that this 'putting between brackets that which has
·been lived' for the benefit of an 'objective' description, this denial to project one's own
emotions, is itself understood as a deliberate purpose, and responds as well to a certain parti

pris.

Structuralism implied, therefore, the same sort of reaction as that of naturalism against
romanticism. Looking at any conduct or phenomenon, existentialism or Teilhard-Marxism told
us about the vital 'project' to which it responded, about the historical alternative or
psychological alienation which it showed, etc. As far as the same social or human phenomenon
goes, the structuralist would be much colder, sceptical, and prudent. The existentialists were
'easy triggers': they interpreted and discovered immediately the profound meanings of the
phenomena. The new naturalists will insist, to begin with, that one must remain on the
descriptive level about the 'ears and heads': that these signifier,s, that these 'superficial'
realities, have their explana.tion in the connected system which joins them with other
superficial realities. The ears should be noted, therefore, as in a relationship with the noses and
the eyes, forming a system of 'members' whose relationship with the clothing system (caps,
scarfs, vests, etc.) will give us a new system that, perhaps, will relate us then to the toponymics,
or the girlfriends' names, or the system of holidays.

It is easy to see, however, that this defence of the signifiers (of appearances, of names) and the
rejection of every 'pro.found' interpretation (historical, psychological, sociological) is not to be
credited on the belief that the matter ends with them. The defence of the epistemological
primacy of the signifiers-which are to be, not 'interpreted', but respectfully 'situated' -is due, on
the contrary, to the belief in the on.tological primacy of a reality much more profound than
history, society or man, and of which all these formations are no more than 'manifestations'.

Putting aside this ideological pretension to arrive at the

profound roots of being, I would argue that the structuralist

claim to study the superstructural systems (religion,

gastronomy, ceremonial, etc) from within corresponds pro.

foundly with the fact that these superstructures have gained

in our society an enormous importance and autonomy. No

longer are they nothing more, but, rather, nothing less than

superstructures I do not think it necessary to dwell upon this

point. It is sufficient to observe the importance that religious

superstructures have acquired, channelling a civil war in

Ireland and a political crisis in Italy over divorce; transform.

ing Asiatic Marxism into Mao-Marxism or inspiring theatrical forms of social behaviour in the
marginal groups of technologically advanced societies.

In this sense, I believe that the structural method was responding to (and was able to better
realize) the dynamics of today's superstructures, which do not limit themselves fo reflecting the
'determining factors in the ultimate instance', but which actually modify or refract them.

2.3 From Code to Competence

Contrasting with classical structuralist grammar, generative linguistics approaches the

psychological infrastructure of language, not as a code or corpus with a fixed amount of
elements susceptible to diverse orders, but as linguistic com.petence: as a combinatory human
'faculty' always suscepti.ble of new creations; as a capacity to produce an unlimited number of
forms from a limited number of elements.

The use of one or other model, I understand to be a purely operative question. It would
probably be better to unders.tand as a code the five elements (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen,
sulphur, and ozone) from whose distinct combinations we get the whole series of flavours and
·smells; or the four elements of the molecular chain whose distinctive distribu.tion and
periodicity enters into the synthesis of proteins, ac.counting for the differences among the more
than two million types of different living species.

What I am very much convinced about, however, is that precisely because the concept of
competence is 'much more dynamic and open' than that of code, it is much less useful for the
understanding of processes of formal stylistic changes. Only if we start from the code or
repertoire of ex.isting forms can we understand the viscous character of the transformations of
art forms: the fact that the first paintings were still, structurally, altar panels; that the first
ornaments in bronze were still following the laws of ornament in stone, or that the first
motorcars still kept the engine apart from the cabin in accordance with the 'model' provided by
horse.drawn carriages.

To consider tradition as that scientific or artistic code which the artist, the writer, or the scientist
finds, and from which he has to operate, helps us to understand the fun.damental ambiguity
which presides over the relationship bet.ween creation and its frame of reference. It is no
longer a matter (see the diagram on p.182) of using the code in an orthodox manner (which
amounts to trivializing and wearing it out) (U1 ); and it is no longer a matter of ignoring it (U2),
since it is not enough to be an eccentric in order to be a creator. In science, as in art, 'novelty
emerges only with difficulty, con.trasting against the background of common expectations'

but 'novelty can only be seen by him who, knowing exactly what may be expected, is able to
recognize that something anomalous has taken place',3 or who, in art, is able to create by
himself the anomaly. The innovatory use of the code is a very delicate operation, therefore-
discovering in it possible variations which have not yet been used, never heard of before, but
still pertinent; transformations able to enlarge the primitive code (C), which by means of this
creative use (U3), is enlarged and becomes a new code (C2), from which the new scientists,
artists, or writers will begin, and from which the people will perceive their works.

From the point of view of creativity, therefore, the scheme is as follows:

C1 The code: stylistic, literary, or theoretical tradition

i U1 Repetitive use of the code ~'usage' or degrada.tion of the code

u U2 'Eccentric' use ~inefficiency and marginality of the message

U3 Pertinent creative use . renovation or transfor.mation of the preceding code

C2 New code 4

The scheme can also be seen 'par l'autre but de la chaine' from the consumer's point of view,
and so the ambiguity of the reception given to new works is also explained. For the spectator:

C1 System of expectations, such as tonality for music, verisimilitude for literature

u Reaction against a non-orthodox work that breaks

those expectations, which, at first, provokes ex.

pressions of the type: 'this is not architecture', 'this

is not music' etc.

C2 Enlarged system of expectations-new code of reception from which non-tonal music,

non.Euclidean geometry, non-functional architecture, etc is appreciated

In this way and only in this way can we account for the phenomena of innovation and creation
without falling into structuralist Manicheism and monism: to attribute to human discourse an
infinite potential of fluidity and unlimited com.petence (the monist1c approach of
transformational gram.mar), or to explain away creativity as due to a parole defined simply as
the exception to code (the Manicheistic approach of Saussurean structuralism).

I have dealt, up to here, with this formal and systematic aspect of the sem iological perspective
because 1t is that which, by itself, opposes traditional criticism or historical in.terpretation. Only
from this baSIS is it pertinent to establish the counterposition of semiological criticism and
historical criticism, which was the theme of the Castelldefels Symposium on Architecture and
Semiotics I am going now to consider the second, and more properly 'semilogical', aspect to
which I referred at the beginning of this essay.

3 The Voluptuous Study of the Signifieds

have already said that the characteristic of structuralism

was the application of formal models to the study, not of

material systems, but of systems of signifiers and even, in

structural semantics, to systems of meanings. Structuralism,

therefore, does not deal with the study of what a seat, a stair.

case, or a fashionable beach are, but with what they signify:

the meaningful connections that their experience provokes

in those who watch or use them.

Studies or• suggestions of a more or less intuitive nature about the 'semiological' value of such
things are not, on the other hand, so recent what is significantly new, as we will see farther on,
is the inflation of these types of studies and their adoption of systematic methods S. Giedion
had already emphasized that the difference between the Greek Agora and the Roman Forum
was not only topological or functional, but also symbolical The irregular design of the Greek
Agora and its exclusively pedestrian character; the lack of monuments of a religious-funerary
nature (exiled into the Acropolis), or of a political representative nature (like the Bolouterios
and other public buildings which respectfully present their back to the square)-everything
suggests the image of a civic Trefpunkt made to the physical and sym.bolic measure of the free
citizen. The spatial structure of the Roman Forum, on the contrary, indicates clearly that it is not
a civic but a political administrative centre: its great scale and regular design suggest-as in the
unitary, baroque 'plazas' against the mere empty space among Renaissance 'palazzi' -that it is a
political centre with its public buildings, the jail, the podium, etc The Forum tells us, with its
scale, symmetry, and structure, that it is the administra.tion or the imperium-no longer the free
citizen-which polarizes public life.

Eugenio d'Ors also knew how to read the meaning of the domes of Brunelleschi. The ribbed
structure of the dome was the symbol of the crown, of the central unifying power, which still
permitted the residual existence of medieval parliamentary institutions, here symbolized by the
ribbons. It is not necessary to insist on the originally symbolic character of the buildings and
urban centres (a Hegelian intuition con.firmed, then, by the ethnologists upon analysing the
osten.tative channelling of the first agricultural surpluses). Alberti already insisted that each
type of building corresponds to certain forms which point out their function: the perfect
Platonic forms (the circle, etc.) for religious buildings, the regular forms or shapes for the public
buildings, and ir.regular for homes.

Awareness of this symbolic dimension of objects or buildings is not, then, really new-why, this
renewed and almost obsessive interest in it? Why this metastasis of the study of the sign-
functions besides, or even independently of, the utility-functions?

3.1 Social Practice and Theoretical Models

My thesis, which I shall later attempt to justify, is that theoretical interest in semiology-
information, theory, linguistics, symbolic logic, mass mediology, etc.-as well as practical
emphasis-in modern design, on symbolic non.utilitarian elements-responds to the importance
that specifically informative aspects of reality have acquired in

our society. As McLuhan argued, 'communication has emerged as a necessary object of

attention in the 20th cen.tury, not because it's new, but because it's a part of the social
organism which is now undergoing elephantiasis'. 5

In the same way that, in a mercantile society, the economy develops and even tends to interpret
archaic periods from the point of view of competition (Darwin ex.plaining the evolution of the
species by the struggle for life), and in the same way that ornithology would develop in a society
which had many birds, in a society in which an inf la.tion of 'animals' of another species-that is,
of 'informa.tions' -appears, it is very logical that:
1 sciences and theories related to this aspect of the emerg.ing reality develop, and that

2 a tendency appears for the understanding of other societies or historical periods from these
theoretical frameworks; extrapolating, thus, in space and in time the new perspective that these
theories offer.

The process, as I understand it, would follow three stages: ·I

1 Quantitative increase in certain 'objects'

2. Development of sciences able to handle them.

3. Application of the models of these sciences to other areas.

In our context, the objects which are proliferating are those strange and intangible realities that
we call 'news' or 'information'; the sciences for their treatment are semiology or information
theory; and the application of those models to other realities would be represented by the
attempts to understand behaviour, the evolution of species, social systems, architecture, etc,
from a sem1olog1cal perspective

I will begin by dealing with this last point in order to pose the most difficult problem of the
sociological causes of this increase in 'information stuff-which 1s the basis of the development
of these sciences, as well as of its imperialistic tendency to colonize, with its methods,
neighbouring regions.

In this saturated context of signs an which information has, most of the time, more importance
than things-where the main news may be precisely the fact that something is news, even where
things or actions are made in order for them to be spoken about-it is very natural for our
ethnologists and anthropologists to want to understand the past, employing

categories that only this social situation has permitted

awareness of

It is not strange, therefore, that students of animal

behaviour with a certain speculative procl1v1ty tend to speak more about ritual dance or
symbolic stylization of the behaviours than about struggle for life or survival of the f,t test. That
they should start to think that the human smile is not an immediate expression or a reflection of
a corporal state, as much as a signic instrument with which the human animal can keep his
mother close at hand, and that, throughout his life, it works as a message which says 'What
you're doing to me, or this situation ·n which I am with you, would make me afraid if you were
somebody else, but not being you' (Desmond Morris). That they should think, along the same
line, that the lips and the protruding breasts of the females of our species have no other
function than that of symbolizing, respectively, the genital labia and buttocks, both of them
developing themselves from the moment that our species walks erect and there is no longer
direct showing of them. Lips and breasts, then, may be understood as cor.poral 'metaphors'

For the same reason, it is not surprising that Deleuze discovers that the Recherche of Proust is
not a sequence of 'memories' but an accumulation of 'signs', tha Lacan finds in the 'signifying
structure of symptoms, imprinted upon the flesh the omnipresence, for the human being, of
symbolic functions'; that Levi-Strauss and Juri Lotmc1-n generalize Marcel Mauss's notions of
'exchange' and 'gift' and refor.mulate sociology as a general theory of communication. Marriage,
economics, and language can be considered as three systems of interchange of increasing
rapidity and decreasing formalization.

Marriage Slow communication of objects (women) of the same nature and size as the subjects
that perform the exchange

Economics Faster and easier communication of goods and services that reqiure signs or symbols
in order to allow for the ex.change.

Language Very fast communication of pure signs.

The formal common denominator of social transactions and institutions is, therefore, for Levi-
Strauss, communica.tion: 'the study of kinship relationships, economics and linguistics handle,
therefore, formally analogous problems, although at different levels'.

These ethnological or anthropological theories are manifestations of the phenomenon

mentioned in the third place in our scheme: the tendency to interpret far removed realities in
terms of a theory which emerged-and, as I understand, only became possible-from a modern
social practice embedded in the informative value of things.

3.2 Sociological Interpretation

What concerns us now is to discover the factors that favour, in a given social context, the
transformation of forms-which were originally of an objective nature-into explicitly
communicative images or symbols.

In my view, the objective consideration of reality-the valuation and appreciation of forms as

physical entities that speak for themselves and not as mere vehicles of informa.tion-1s only
possible within certain thresholds of socio.economic organization and territorial scale. I am
referring to the 'bourgeois scale' that, in Athens, made possible the speculative discovery of
reality as an autonomous object, in.dependent of personal drives or projections, precisely as a
result of a projection in the physical world of the categories of balance, order, and hierarchy
experienced in the microcosms of the bourgeois city. The scale of the polis, in which it was still
possible for art not to be a creation of 'images' on one hand, or a 'spectacular consumption' on
the other; of an art 'linked with the internal communication of an elite which had a semi-
independent social foundation

in the partially ludic structure still being lived by the last aristocrats' (Guy Debord). Once we
have outgrown the boundaries of this bourgeois environment, which literally segregated
'objectivity':

1.

communication becomes problematic in such a way that every object is understood in its strict,
functional.informative value, and, therefore,

2.

the emphasis shifts from the creation or production of ob.jects, to their consumption,
communication, or propaga.tion.

We are now going to test (a) how these two factors are the ones that historically explain the
periods in which symbols dominate over things, in order to conclude by observing how

(b)

both factors get together in order to favour nowadays this transubstantiation of the social
reality into a symbolic reality.

(a)

Prehistory and Theory of 'lnformativism'

From a historical point of view, the exchange of objects seems to have filled a brief period
preceded and followed by the exchange of symbols In the beginning and at the end, in primitive
or in developed societies, the exchange is mainly one of signs or information.

In primitive societies, in fact, it looks as if every form of exchange or interaction among its
members is an excuse to exchange the more special and necessary commodity: infor.mation,
contact with others. The Kula of the Trobriande, described by Malinowski, is a system of
symbolic exchange in which people give each other necklaces, bracelets, baubles, etc objects
specially designed to carry out this function of symbolic exchange. In the same way, the Potlach,
or conspicuous destruction, calls for the principle of 'I shall burn all my goods and you burn all
of yours' with which the rice-growers of Borneo assure a periodical social level-placing, avoiding
the establishment of a hierarchy of class differences.

It makes little difference whether they exchange necklaces or bracelets, whether they burn food
or tools: in both cases they attempt to keep communicating, to reaffirm or reinforce the contact
and the fact of belonging to one circle rather than to another. That which is exchanged is
com.munication itself. These rituals of exchange work like phatic elements do in verbal language
(the 'I say, can you hear me?' 'Yes, yes, fine', on the telephone) or regulators in the corporal
language (to nod with the head, to 'look around', etc): as elements which assure or reinforce
the duration of the in.teraction. They are very exactly, 'maintenance costs' in societies in which
communication is difficult or problematic and in which the lack of them can cause death.

Levi-Strauss understood the essential rule of the 'incest taboo'-the law which obliges one to go
in search of a girlfriend in the neighbouring village-as a cunning strategy for the maintenance of
communication with which the tribe widens its environment and develops culturally, importing
new techniques or contacting other markets.

But, most surprisingly, this primacy of sign exchange over object exchange appears in opposite
situations: both in primitive, dispersed, and subsistence-level economies, where the
maintenance of contact is a vital necessity, and in societies in which urban crowdedness and
economic af.fluence once again make information into a product of primary necessity. Starting
from this, I suggest the hypothesis that only in the medium scale or threshold of the city and
the bourgeois system of exchange-when, in the terminology of Poulanzas, the areas of
hegemony and domination of a social class coincide-does a concern for objects and their
creation exist more than for their effects and their consump.tion. 0 The proliferation of images
in our society is an un.mistakable symptom of the fact that both the scale of and the emphasis
on production, characteristic of bourgeois societies, have changed. The process would be rather
of the following nature:
1 Use of a given medium of communication in accordance with a certain domain: pulpit in the
church, rostrum in the city, radio for the nation.

2.

Enlargement of the domain and appearance of concurrent media and messages which put the
habitual channels of communication in crisis: transformation of the Greek polis into a Roman
Empire, or the American nation into a watchdog of the free world.

3.

Transformation of all the objects that this society pro.duces into emphatically-if not exclusively-
informative ones.

Objects and messages incorporate, then, a certain phatic metalinguistic dimension which
ensures and reinforces its transmission-a dimension one could represent as an arrow pointing to
and calling attention towards the message itself:

In art history, this process of 'emphatization' can be followed in the transformation of the
objective-idealistic Hellenic or Renaissance style into the effectivist, illusionist Roman or
baroque style In Rome, in fact, the formal Greek repertory is used but its syntactical
organization varies. Its

elements are no longer used for their objective value, but for the effect they are able to create
in the observer They think now in terms of the consumption of monuments. monuments that
are able to be perceived from a great distance. And the

message

reason, as we have seen, is obvious Roman buildings and banners have to speak now, not only
to a polis of cives who share its code, but to the barbarians in Gallia or in Hispania, who are
controlled by the ius gentium, who are entertained by the spectacles and who are impressed
with the imperial 'image'. Its style has to be, then, more clearly decodable, more effect1vist,
and more symbolic Since its message must travel very far away, classical forms are transformed
into Roman symbols. The quantity-distance, in this case-makes the qua I ity.
Something similar happens with the transformation of Renaissance stylistic language-objective,
idealistic, private, civic language-into baroque 1llusionism. Baroque buildings do not have to talk
to the citizens of Florence or Bruges any more, but to the nation or to the Christian world. They
have to give, for example, the image of a Church-One, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman. The
Church no longer pro.duces spirituality as in the times of Eckhardt or of Romanes.que churches,
but promotes eternal salvation and sells spirituality. The first known case of a systematic
marketing of something is that of the baroque commercialization of Faith. It was not by chance,
in fact, that 1t was then when the expression propaganda fide was made up and used. The will
or necessity of propagating a message transforms it im.mediately into propaganda. From there
it is a short step to the verbosity of the baroque fa\ades and the theatricality of their images
that must carry the message of Redemption rapidly and to the most remote places.

I think that Roman and baroque precedents clearly illustrate the thesis that when the audience
enlarges, or when there are 'noises' which make reception of language difficult for the
traditional audience (Protestant 'competition' for the baroque Catholic Church, commercial or
industrial 'competi.tion' nowadays), it becomes necessary to concentrate forces to get messages
across, and, therefore, forms develop into concrete images, which above all ensure that their
messages are well received, understood, assumed, and consumed. 6

(b) Determining Factors in Modern 'lnformatism': Modes of Production, Sales, Consumption,

Payment, and Territoriality

Now, we have to turn our attention to specific factors which have brought about this increase of
symbols in our society, with the corresponding development of sciences devoted to its study. As
has already been pointed out, while 1n primitive societies it was the /ow frequency of
informative contacts due to physical dispersion and cultural fragmentation which rnade
information the most valued merchandise, in modern societies it is the high frequency of
information (due to urban overcrowding, commercial competition, communication networks on
an international scale) that now makes informa.

190 Signs, Symbols and Architecture

tion purposefully produced merchandise. But let us look at these factors one at a time.

1. Production Since the development of a capitalism, no longer based on competition, but

organized, technical, and planned, information ceases to be a luxury that in.dustrial society
allows itself, a surplus in its development or a simple by-product of its activity. In advanced
capitalist societies, information becomes a first-rate work.ing tool. Being better informed is as
much or more impor.tant than having more available capital, cheaper labour, etc.
Industrial information is even sold as 'know-how'.

'Industrial espionage' tries to find out formulae and

techniques used by the competition. Universities are no

longer considered as that speculative luxury that middle.

class society prides itself on; they appear instead as the producers and transmitters of that
knowledge whose worth is not only cultural but economic as well. It was this dired
instrumentalization of knowledge in universities (knowledge once considered free and critical)
which gave virulence and revolutionary content to an old, time.honoured bourgeois tradition of
revolt in universities.

2. Sale From the very moment at which several brands can equally satisfy basic or induced
necessities, the battle to sell can no longer be fought at the traditional level which based its
sales pitch on higher quality or longer life of the product. It is now necessary to create positive
symbolic connections with the product to be sold in order to make it desirable. The progressive
extinction of differences bet.ween products generates the need to manufacture those
differences. Each product is now promoted as dif-fer-ent precisely because it is made un-
differentiated. Not only must products, or better products, be manfactured, but also images of
these products. And not only images of these products, but images of the manufacturing
com.pany The shape of a cigarette-lighter, for instance, has to promote a 'daring-masculine-
dynamic' image of its owner, and the manufacturer of the lighter will take to bringing out a
corporate image of an 'imaginative, up-to-date' business, or, on the other hand, it may opt for
an image of being 'confident in a tradition of responsible nobility'. This proliferation of 'images'
of products or companies first makes it imperative to tackle the problem of the in.formative or
semantic value of forms and, second, creates an environment of symbols or images which give
an in.creasingly spiritual character to our Umwelt.

3 Consumption Correlative with this production of 'im.ages', consumption is being increa ingly
transformed into the consumption of symbols: into semiophagics (symbol

eating).

Calvin discovered the sign-function of wealth: being rich was not only useful in order to live
better, but it was also a sign of predestination. Later Veblen discovered the sign-function of
consumption: consumption was aimed not only at the satisfaction of biological needs, but also
at the ostentation of acquisitive power. Today, what is more, we are discover.ing the taste or
flavour in the consumption of the signs themselves. And this is what our na'i've critics of
'consumer so.ciety' have not seen: that consumption is today the only authentically spiritual
practice of our time. Advertising does not propose the acquisition of objects, but of ideals,
aspira.tions, sensations. The object for consumption-soap, institu.tionalized culture, a car, or a
drink-is nothing but 'a medium' by means of which we accede to virility, status, in.timacy, or
power of attraction. We do not consume objects, but ideals. They are not selling us stimuli-an x
for the necessity y-but the sensations themselves ('feel younger, more exotic ... '). They sel I to
us and we consume not food, but its very flavour; not sex, but the restJlt of its purification: that
which is sexy. We do not acquire Christmas decorations for the house, but gemutlichkeit itself.

Propaganda works more or less like drugs. One accedes directly to the sensations without the
bothersome duty of becoming interested in their stimuli: the 'philosophical' advertiser of
advanced capitalism is becoming able to inject into us the sensation or the information itself,
and it is not at all absurd to imagine that the perfection of this society will be the disappearance
of the very objects of consumption: the transformation of all market relationships into an
authentic commerce and consumption of universals.

Each age, one must remember, has the spiritualism it deserves. The only non-traumatic
spiritualism 'that can be made out on the horizon of post-industrial society is this autophagic
spiritualism by which we acquire and con.sume-by means of objects-the ideal of ourselves: our
originality-it is different-our autonomy, our youth. The authentically desired and. consumed
thing is the Ideal: manufactured objects are nothing more than the sign of this.

4. Payment R11t not only do the forms of production, sales, and consumption tend to
transubstantiate all reality into signs. Also the forms of payment are progressively becom.ing
more immaterial, more symbolic and, in the end, more intimate and spiritual. McLuhan saw the
first step when emphasizing that the credit card is transforming product.money into
information-money. But it is more than that. As Enzensberger observed, it turns out that the
more ex.pensive the product is, the less probable it is that we have to pay for it· that it is 'free'.
We must pay for a packet of cigarettes or a book, but we do not pay materially for ser.

vic. s infinitely mor expensive, such as travelling on a highway or watching, live on TV,
something that is hap.pening on the other side of the world.

Does it turn out that we only pay for cheap things? No. Evidently, what happens is that we pay
for the more ex.pensive things by ali nating ourselves; by lending ourselves as subjects capable
of being 'informed'; by of.fering ourselves as objects-subjects of publicity manipulation in the
intervals between spectacles that television gives us; by giving ourselves in exchange for the
sprv1ces that the system offers us In an unconscious but sure way, forms of payment are also
becoming day by day more spiritual, more symbolic, more 'personal' .
.'> h•rritonality As we have seen, th extension of external markets, and the compet1t1ve
character of the internal ones, forced the association of products with the brand image which
makes them easily decodable within dif.ferent cultural systems Which is the shape of the bottle,
the figure, or the initials which will immediately suggest the 'refreshing drink' to a lower middle-
class Catalan, to a rurkish pedsant, and to a Tuareg. Also, the fact that the in.formation 1s
received from far away or at great speed (on highways, for instance) has made necessary a
special study of the way signs are perceived. Symbols-the huge hamburger, the big boy, the
giant glass of champagne-abound, thus, along the strip, substituted for written messag s which
1t would be im.possible to read. Venturi's proposal of substituting archi.tecture right away by
symbols and advertisement along the highway rs not so surrealistic as it might seem. But there
rs still another way in which the urban forms ofter.ritorial organiz atron f dvour-pract1ca I ly
force-the pro.1iferation of signs and the transformation of any reality in.to s1gnif1cant material.
Starting from the study of animal behaviour, ethologists have showed that Irving species have
certain needs of spatial structuration, which they satisfy by means of one of two ways· (a) the
territorializat1on, or centrifugal organizc1t1on by which each family and group (and among men
subculture) looks for an area where it an project its identity and recognize itself; and (b) the
hierarchy or centripetal structuration, by means of whi h individuals b longing to different
groups, families, etc, try to share and live together in the same space, avoiding aggres siveness
and latent tensions, accepting c rtain priorities among the individuals permitting th, non-
conflictive use of the same space In crowded and 'democratic' modern urban soci tres, thE>
need for spatial structuration cannot

be easily satisfied by those mechanisms, except in a

residual and insufficient way (and even with bad cons.

cience; by means of racial ghettos, ways of showing off

power, etc). The modern metropolis, as M. Weber saw, is

no longer the culmination of the ancient city or the

medieval community-where the bourgeois is the

bourgeois of a certain city-but the result of its ra.

tionalization and conversion into an impersonal instru.

ment for the reproduction of capital. That 1s why that

basic need of differentiation seeks even more

sophisticated and symbolic strategies. It is almost im.

possible to have something or some place distinct since

mass production has made both consumption and ter.

ritory into a homogeneous medium-but even then the

recourse of knowing how to use the same place, or to be

in the same place, in a different way, remains. Small

changes in tone, in rhythm, in tempo are then transformed

into status or power symbols. Precisely because material

differences are becoming more and more rare the sym.

bolic ones multiply and blossom For certain groups thus,

there will be a decisive differentiation yalue, in not wear.

ing blazers any more, or in still liking Tchaikovsky, or in

coming back to an interest for neo-classicism, or in not

driving a Renault 4/4 any more ....

There is still another reason why the artificiality of the urban medium helps or favours the
substitution of natural stimuli by signs Orientation rn traditional citiec; or establishments is not
exclusively visual. Orientating hints reach us through different senses: touch or feel of the
ob.jects, texture of the walls, the smell of the shops, the noise of the busy craftsmen. New town
designers, on the contrary, seem obsessed with the idea of eliminating smells, tastes, and
wrinkles They short-circuit our rich orientation system and they bring us, as a substitute, a
beautiful 'semiological' design.

They divide the environment into soundproof compart.ments· they antiseptic1ze the medium in
such a way that we can no longer discover 'naturally' -by the smell of coffee, the noise of the
spoons in the cups, etc -where the cafeteria is, and they give us, in substitution, an overstud1ed
sign-'Cafeteria' -created by an experimental team of an American un1vers1ty according to
criteria concerned with 'optimization of information', 'legibility', and other niceties. It is
something too similar to cutting off our legs and then running to bring us some crutches in
accordance with the most modern prosthetic criteria. Semiology as the prosthetics of
communication-we have here a suggestive theme for analysis.

Be that as it may, what is sure is that we ltve in our cities with these symbolic crutches which
the technological
Signs, Symbols and Architecture

dt>velopment of the media and the impotence of architects and designers to organize it in a
human way have trans.formed into a macabre dance of signs without objects, of signs acting
like things, of crutch signs instead of stimuli. ...

Now, while the majority of us (Europeans especially) will.ingly accept that such phenomena as
marketing, styling, packaging, or 'image creation' are practices induced by the forms of
production, promotion, consumption, and ter.ritoriality of neo-capitalist society, we reject the
assump.tion that some apparently more scientific or cultural pht>nomena might be touched
and affected by the same fac.tors

Here we have I think, the most aggressive and controver.sial aspect of my thesis

I believe that the effect of this production system is as much marketing as Lacan's psychology or
structuralist 'philosophy'; as much American styling as the more 'cultural' European 'styling'
which has come to be called neo.h istoric 1sm, neo-liberty neo-rationalism, or
neo.ac.ademicism; as much the proliferation of studies concern.ing acquisitive preferences as
that of studies in semiology. With these pages I intended to demonstrate that these are two
sides-the 'theoretically cultivated' one and the 'pragmatic/philistine' one-of the same coin; two
aspects of the same social reality.

3.3 Semiology-action

Up to this point I have concerned myself with the features of social reality that provoke
semiology, but I would not like to conclude without making reference to the complementary
aspect of the social efficiency of signs. I have spoken about semiology as 'effect', and now I am
going to talk about it as 'cause'

It is usually assumed that 'saying' is the external expres.sion of something one thinks', or that
the sign 1s the expres.sion of a content already existing beforehand. But it has already been
quite a while since Hegel said that there is nothing behind' the act the gesture, or the word. It is
usual to assume that every act is loaded with signification; it is a good time to insist on the
reverse as well: that every signit1cation is also an action. L1nguist1c behaviour, as Malinowski
saw, 1s of a basically pragmatic nature: to see it as an embodiment of thought is to 'take a one-
sided vision of what constitutes one of the more derivative and specialized functions of
language' Language 1s a form of behaviour which may be used to communicate, or to avoid
com.munication to manifest or t hide one's own mind, to make a relationship more intimate, or,
on the contrary, more con.
ventional And it is equally multifunctional as a social in.

stitution: it has served, and serves, in Europe or amongst the

Hopi T erva, as a tool of unification and adhesion to the

group, or, on the contrary (as it happened with secret cults

and sects, in ancient Egypt and Greece, or in the Middle

Ages), as a tool of social differentiation and segregation.

Austin and the later Wittgenstein based their philosophies upon this principle of semiology-
action: to say or signify something is not only to express but also to do something It is not
difficult to discover situations in which to 'say' presup.poses something more than 'giving
notice' of something. When I say 'yes' to a girl, while facing a priest in a given ceremonial
context, I am not only-or not fundamen.tally-giving notice of a feeling: I am pledging myself, I
am getting married. The word 'yes' does not say anything, 1tdoes it. Words, then, not only say
things, but they 'promise', 'pledge', 'institute', 'sanction', etc At a different level, the declaration
by a delegate of the British opposition to a state of precarious stability in exchange rate did not
say the devaluation, but made it

In Die Frohliche Wissenschaft, Nietzsche carries this point even further: •

Name, reputation and appearance of the thing, all that, as it is believed and transmitted from
generation to generation, progressively adheres itself to the thing, wedging itself in it, finally
becoming, being converted into, the substance itself. . . It is enough, thus, to create new names,
evaluations, or signs in order to create, in the long run, new things

Signs, therefore, not only represent a situation, but provoke this situation: they are, in good
measure, charismatic, self.fulfilling prophecies of the situation they must signify And, since signs
call for reality, it might be advisable, at a given moment, to feed the market with habits in order
to have the production of monks increased. The very existence of signs favours the appearance
of the realities they signify. The pro.cess of social and cultural evolution can, in this sense, be
understood as a process of the 'filling in' or 'completion' of originally empty signs

The sign, in other words, not only means (signifies) but creates its meaning-or consolidates it if
it happens to exist already. The incest taboo in primitive societies 1s a sign of culture-of the
imposition of rules on behaviour-but, at the same time, as I have already indicated, it is a
provoker of culture in increasing the contacts of the group or clan.

And we can observe the same thing in everyday 'signs' To be seated on a rostrum is a sign of
superiority, status, but a reinforcer, too, of this status, since he who is higher sees bet
Signs, Symbols and Architecture

ter than the rest of the group and can control it better. In the same way to go painted yellm in a
group where everybody is red 1s a sign of leadership, but 1t is also a consolidator of leadership,
since, fore ample the stranger who approaches the group \\ di be directed, in all probabilit to
the one painted yellow, and so he would be able to control and chan.nel all the external
contacts

A dramatic example of th1 act in education can be found in Inequality, b Jencks. n intelligent'
child, who starts with a small genetr advantage attract attention and dedication from parents
and teachers for v.horn it is more pleasant to teach and educate that child than other, less-
favoured classmates. From this a 'cumulative effect of initial dif.ferences in capacity' follows.
Those who have more capacity and skill find more opportunity to de elop them in the
en.vironment propitiated by the first signs of their superiority while those who lack such capacrt
-or its appearance.tend to be dissuaded. Individual genetic differences start as signs for the
environment, but the end up b influencing that same environment.

A confirmation of this is the well-known experiment of the teacher to whom 20 randomly

selected children were allocated, telling him that it was a group specially selected for their
exceptional intelligence At the end of the year their level of achievement and qualifications
were clearly higher than that of other groups. Expectation created thus that which was
expected: signs that which they proclaimed.

To live in an exclu ive residential area, to give an example on an urban level, is a sign of the
economic status of its in.habitants, but this character is reinforced by the sign itself, since the
speculators will buy land in this area and they will pay higher prices for it due to the
incorporation of the sign of social prestige in the land. The fact that it is a significative space
makes it, then, even more significative.

This is one reason why as Hoyt pointed out, territorial

growth and the increase in land value in development areas

is not homogeneous, as in Figure 1.

Town growth usually follows sectorial patterns as in

Figure 2
But if the signs provoke the reality which they are said to express, it is not absurd to attempt, for
example, to create ur.ban zones of a determined character by means of the promo.tion of a
eries of sign-elements that will act like a bait. And in the same way that traders and
professionals in the media have studied and developed much more sophisticated sym.bolic
techniques than ha architects (which is why Venturi proposes the latter should learn from the
former), in respect of semiology-action also the merchants have gone ahead of the urban
designers It 1s obvious, for instance that the

Figure 1

Figure 2

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·._... . .

. .. .. ...

•:

..~\

. •\

..\

,. .....

\ ..',

'\, ' ...... ,,

.. _........____

..

" . . ..
-

Density 20 Inhabitants per m2fil~;Ja

Density 10 Inhabitants per m2

t l ..:. .. ...

Density 3 Inhabitants per m2

existence of a young, fashionable, commercial zone-Lon.don's Kings Road, Tuset m Barcelona,

the prnk or golden zones of Mexico City, Ghirardelli in San Francisco-interests businesses as an
inv,gorating pole for sales by means of the creation of a physical framework m which the
leader~h p of youth. in the form of consumption is evident to the highest degree. And the
trained noses of the merchants have not

Signs, Symbols and Architecture

ceased to search for certain places-nor to create certain

new places-in which a few spatial signs produce this

ambiance which they seem to signify. These areas must be,

for instance, rather crowded, more easily visible than ac.

cessible; several different domains must overlap

(cafeteria-exhibition hall-boutique) so that the spectator

group (which is also consumer) may watch the show group

(hippy, young, etc.) without really feeling alien to it, arriving

at the feeling that they are really integrated into what is hap.

pening. One, at least, of the more attractive shops must be

placed at the end of the route, provoking in this way the

walk which keeps people in circulation and attracts out.

siders. The client turns into the very show that attracts the
next c I ient ....

The fact that businessmen have been able to create

'qualified' spaces by means of signs suggests the possibility

that artists and architects also learn not only to use signs, but

to make with signs. When architects start thinking that good

spaces are not those which are designed but which have

gradually 'grown', when people build following the course of

their needs, when artists prefer to be considered as provokers

of new situations rather than as creators-when all this hap.

pens there is little doubt that the possibility of favouring a

certain development by using signs is one of the new

avenues open to them. A possibility which, I personally

think, should be used to give people back the eye and the

taste for the singular in an environment where everything

tends to become more and more archetypal and ideal, in.. tangible and spiritual.

Signs, which are the product of a social and territorial

structure, have also an effect in changing it. They are the

result, but also the cause of the situations they signify. Per.

sonally, I feel this revival of the power of signs over things is

a rather frightening experience; it seems to me an irrefutable

proof of the fact that conflict and unrest in modern

culture-the loss of any hope of balance between emotional

and intellectual life-have only been increasing. It is, I sup.

pose, a fear similar to that of Tolstoy's horse when he con.

sidered the fetishism of human language and concluded:

'What they [men] seek is not so much the possib.ility of doing

or not doing something as the possibility of uttering, with

respect to certain things, certain words which they have

agreed amongst themselves.' But, be that as it may, the pro.

phetic and charismatic force of signs-their power to cause

the sale, the revolution, or the feeling they appear only to

represent-is there. And, in the end, the last one to learn to

take advantage of this is most likely to come out as the loser

in the game.

Notes to the Text

1. A similar criticism of 'genesis' or 'evolution' as a model of explanation has been made by

Chomsky as to its use as an instrument of analysis of mental and verbal processes. He says:

in order to understand how language is used and ac.quired we have to isolate, for its separate
study, a cognitive system, a system of beliefs and thoughts .... We must isolate and study the
system of I ingu is tic competence wh 1ch underlies our behaviour. . . We must describe the
different systems of knowledge and beliefs which characterise man ac.cording to their internal
organisation and only then start the study of how these systems may have been generated.

In this quotation we find the same defence of synchroni.city and the same stress on the need
for an 'espeleological' approach that we have been discussing so far.

2 Criticism of structuralist positions has been frequent in France. According to T. de Quenetain,

when France is no longer the leader of history, she invents an ideology deny.ing history, and
debases philosophy into an activity of bricolage and of discussion of matters such as fashion or
menus. According to Lefebvre, structuralism amounts to a sort of technocratic Hegelianism that
no longer puts into question the origins and social function of codes and assumes that every
possible transformation is already 'written' in a code which determines beforehand every
'pertinent' change. In the same vein, Jean Pouillon argues that it is a theory of order unable to
account for disorder. Other critics refer to structuralism as a 'substitute for the ontological
aspirations' of traditional metaphysics; as 'Kantism without the transcendental subject' or as
'neo.Parmenideism'.

Criticisms which refer to structuralism as an 'extrapola.tion' are of more intrinsic interest.

Ricoeur says that the structurdlist method can only obtain interesting results when applied to
'primitive' societies-the field of study where it first emerged, that is, to societies where cultural
specialization does not exist, as it does in 'hot', or more advanced societies. The 'matenal logic'
of structuralism would apply to the study of those societies where logic and nature, rules and
affective behaviour occur at the same

Signs, Symbols and Architecture

/eve/, but it would not apply to those situations, as for in.stance in the Hebrew tradition, where
knowledge and rules are 'stored' in Books. In these situations a structural schematization of the
significant elements of behaviour (as signifiers) would be insufficient, and it is necessary to
develop a proper hermeneutic of the meanings (as signifieds) and interpretations of the Books.
The na·iv<e assertion by Levi-Strauss that primitive societies are more 'authentic' would confirm
Ricoeur's opinion: Levi-Strauss would call 'non-authentic' those societies and cultural
for.mations to the study of which his analysis cannot be pro.perly applied, and 'authentic' those
to which it can be ap.plied.

Garaudy criticized structuralism for its lack of 'oppor.tunity'. The happy marriage between
theory and practice propitiated by 'humanist Marxism', Garaudy says, was put into danger
when, with Althusser, Marxism attempted to become a 'science', just as technical and esoteric
as the study of. macromolecules, for instance. What Garaudy forgets to discuss, however, is the
validity of that sup.posed 'unity between theory and practice' achieved under the auspices of
his favourite version of Teilhard-Marxism.

Contrary to Garaudy, it is my belief that the influence of structuralism over Marxism has been as
beneficial as the influence of existentialism was, with Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique.
Existentialism brought the notion that the 'new society' did not exist ideally and that, therefore,
revolution did not consist of carrying out the revolution but of inventing it. Structuralism, on the
other hand, pointed out that the reality to be transformed was more complex than the
orthodox economicist tradition had assumed it to be. In both cases, theoretical and ideological
Marxism has been revised: with existentialism, by dissolving its ideological component into
action; with structuralism, by trying to bring its ideology closer to scientific knowledge.

Be that as it may, the sharpest possible criticism of structuralism, as the endeavour of

discovering the systems from which we operate, is still Sartre's: 'It is not that which makes us
which matters, but rather what we make with that which makes us.'

3.

T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 7962.
4.

Evidently, one can, in Saussurean terms, understand C as language and U as parole My diagram,
however, differs fundamentally from Saussure in that I am attempting to encompass within 1t
the creative role of parole acts which Saussure considered as lying outside the scope of
linguistic analysis. It is precisely this which Chomsky

critized in Language and Mind. According to my diagram, we need a structural study of parole or
creative com.petence (which Chomsky only postulates as the very 'substance' of language,
without ever analysing its viscous relationship with preexisting cultural residua).

5.

Sociologists tell us that in our time almost every kind of communication is growing faster than
economic produc.tion itself; information, economists tell us, is the only com.modity not subject
to the law of decreasing benefits, and futurologists boast about information and knowledge as
future substitutes for scarce commodities (oil, etc). We seem to have discovered a new species
of quite a 'fabulous' nature.

6.

In those conditions problems are more or less of a domestic scale, and moral and intellectual
models, suitable and useful for that scale, develop-secular religions like Christianity, Humanism,
and Scientism. When the scale or the size of problems go beyond these thresholds, these
models become useless, and have to be provided for by religions or science£ of a more cosmic
nature. When, as happens with primitive societies, or with American contemporary society,
problems are of a global nature-problems of power, danger, and responsibility for the survival of
the species-the ideologies of scientism and/or humanism are unsuited, and only witchcraft
applies. The new spiritualism and orientalism of American youth (which I was completely
unable to share) was made finally intelligible to me when I realized the radicality of the
problems and the size of forces and powers one experiences there: racial confrontation, the
extinction of a defenceless nation, violence. In the primitive man's jungle nothing can be taken
for granted, 'everything is possible'-and the same applies to the streets of an American city;
everybody was aware, in the jungle, of the relationship between the limpness of the daughter
and the spell cast over her mother, and everybody is aware, in the USA, of the relationship
betwen the limpness of the daughter and her mother's schizophrenia .... The former do not
need yet, and the latter no longer need, our priests, humanists, and rationalists of the 'political'-
domestic scale. They need the shaman, or the prophet, who may bring them illumination,
salvation, who may bring them back, purified, that very external power and force they fear and
that internal power and force which chills them ....

Towards the end of the nineteenth century Santayana wrote:

Mythological and animistic habits of thought hold their

force beyond the boundaries of knowledge, where scientific explanation does not reach. Within
ourselves, amidst the intricate chaos of animal and human life, we appeal to the efficiency of
will and spirit But in the intermediate domain of modern life, where mechanical sciences have
progressed, the inclusion of personal and emotional elements in the conception of reality would
only be eccentricity

If something can be learned from recent developments it is the fact that Santayana was very
wise in calling th do.main of scientific ideology 'intermediate' and not 'last', since that 'remote
night' is reappearing and the 'boun.daries of knowledge' seem to reunite again, distressingly,
once we have stepped out from certain thresholds. The future of religion-'the future of an
illusion'-is not quite as simple as Freud saw it. What the crisis now affects is not illusion-the
Great Illusion in capitals-but rather the petite monnaie, sensible and humanist, which our
Western culture made out of that illusion.

7 The Japanese, because of their lack of balance between domain and power, between
economic development and political control, have recently felt the need to control the image
they offer to the outside world-an image which, like the American one, tended to deteriorate.
An institute has been recently formed in Tokyo with the sole purpose of manufacturing and
propagating this image.