Space and Meaning

I like the way the last three articles reconsidered space. Since we are educated in a modern-minded school, I think we might take for granted the idea that we are to design space for people to live in when we create architecture. I really like the idea that our view of architecture is incomplete without considering the quality of space it shapes. I do feel like I sometimes describe architecture like I would describe “a painting by giving the dimensions of its frame, calculating the areas covered by the various colors and then reproducing each color separately.” (I think this exercise would be quite fitting for our semester. lol) In learning all of the details that go into making architecture I hope that I don’t forget the importance of the space I am making.
I also liked how Lefebvre spoke of the way we talk about “reading” architecture. I would agree that there may be a “reader” who can “decode” and a “speaker” who can “express,” but there is not a “reading” of a space with one specific message. I think this point continues our semester long conversation about the audience of architecture. As architects we can try to implant so much “meaning” in a building for other architects to dissect all the while leaving any other visitor clueless and uninvolved. But I think Lefebvre would agree that it is in fact the inhabitant, educated in architecture or not, who makes and takes away their own meaning just as “space is at once the result and the cause, product and producer.” This might be the compromise of our opinions: no matter how intentionally readable or functional a space may be, only each user can decide its meaning?