Design languages and methods: Semiotics as a tool for theoretical development

In recent years, many theories based on semiotic models have been developed in architecture. But in comparison to similar developments in other fields, these theories have not led to positive results in architecture except in a few isolated cases. First, architects have limited knowledge of linguistic and semiotic concepts and transfer them to architecture. Second, and more important for articulating the position to be presented here, when these models are transferred no distinction is made between what we shall call ideological theories and theory in a more strict sense. It will be my position that the clarification of these points, especially the second one, must precede any work of general theoretical development and in particular the development of a semiotic theory of architecture.