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transparency is the basis for the intellectual pleasure that ac-
companies the deciphering of an architectural > composition.
Revealed as illusory, on the other hand, is the ideal of satis-
faction via forms that are held to be totally transparent in
relation to their contents, as demanded by eighteenth-century
rationalism (architecture parlante) and twentieth-century
functionalism. No architectural form can be read unambigu-
ously. And although it may admit certain indisputable inter-
pretations, an expanded spectrum of messages is inherent to
every form, and may acquire new meanings over the course
of time, thereby assuming new functions. Moreover, even the
simplest building represents a > situation of such complexity
that although some traits may be legible, the situation is
graspable only as an integrated experience. It is precisely this
complexity of meaning, which need not necessarily be clearly
deciphered, that is essential to architectural experience.
At the same time, the legibility of the distribution of
functions and routes may render some forms of signage su-
perfluous. This does not mean, however, that in place of writ-
ten characters, the architecture itself becomes a set of signs
whose code must be learned in order to render them legible;
but instead that a building’s form and configuration may
render much of its content directly and vividly perceptible.
We often say that the formation of a spatial > joint, for exam-
ple, renders a directional change legible, or that the shaping of
the embrasure indicates an > entrance. But mostly these forms
lead us intuitively in a certain direction without the involve-
ment of codified signs. Modes of expression such as > appeal,
> invitation character, or > gesture display possible forms of
behaviour, action and movement directly and intuitively ac-
cessible ways. While formalism and abstraction remove us
from a self-evident intercourse with things, making the read-
ing of sign-based information necessary by way of compensa-
tion, our direct intercourse with expressively designed archi-
tecture is clarified by shape in itself. At times, meanwhile, that
which a building actually is – the way in which its architec-