Semiotics of computer media in architecture

The object of the research is drawing in architecture. Architectural drawing can be seen as a metasemiotics, having buildings as an object, that is to say, a part of what Greimas and Courtes (1986: 218, 314-5) call natural semiotics, which is our ability to give a human meaning to everything that surrounds us. Architecture in strict terms is a connotative semiotics, which starting from constructed objects communicates its way of seeing space in a social and ideological way. A design is a text very different from a picture. First of all, it consists of many different drawings, hierarchically related to each other, which repre- sent the object that has to be built. Furthermore, it lacks the outline frame which sets the space relationship between the painted items in an unequivo- cal way: in this case the disposition of the representation in different drawings and in each single drawing has a purely practical function (Ciribini 1967). On a figurative level, we find on the plane of expression the figures and for- mants, that is to say, the representation of elements of the building (pillars, walls, floors, windows, etc.) on various flat supports to be integrated with each other (horizontal and vertical sections, isometric views, perspectives) according to the characteristics that define the elements themselves (dimensions, situation, material of which they have to be built). On the con- tent plane, we find the same elements of the building (Table 3), now real, with their respective social and artistic aspects, the latter belonging also to connotative semiotics "architecture". The introduction of the computer in design cannot be considered as a univocal process (Mitchell 1990): we must distinguish between bi- and tri- dimensional programs.