245simple and clearly structured (i.e. as a cube). A well-calculated
> scenic direction opens up dramaturgical possibilities that
are reminiscent of the spatial fantasy in the carceri of Gio-
vanni Battista Piranesi.
Literature: Kulka 1931On the one hand, architecture is read like a text; on the other,
like a human face. In the first instance, structural forms or
entire buildings assume the function of > signs, which one
learns to read, generally in reliance on cultural codes. A read-
ing mediated by signs, however, encompasses only a marginal
fraction of architectural communication. For the most part,
architecture conveys meaning via immediately and intuitively
accessible forms of > expression, whose impact on us is direct
in nature.
When architecture is read like a text, it is capable of
conveying inherent contents or narrating stories, of gratify-
ing the intellect through its lucid intelligibility, or of engag-
ing in play with divergent readings. It is always a question
of legibility, of the quality that allows us to identify certain
contents or structural forms through relevant interpretive acts
or readings, thereby allowing us rationally to comprehend a
spatial structure or constructive principle, a set of dimensions
or a system of access. According to functionalist maxims, a
building’s function in particular ought to be legible through
its form; practical > utility should find expression in a form
that is expressive of use. Also found among the functions of
architecture, however, are cultural and political meanings
whose legibility follows their own rules for reading. Along-
side a building’s inherent features, its structure may also allow
a reading of its position within the superordinate context of
a landscape or cityscape, which may itself in turn be readable
as a text (> context).
On the one hand, readability is an indispensable precon-
dition for the intelligibility of architecture, and its rationalReadability