281transport > meanings that may lie outside architecture, so that
their transmission relies on convention or knowledge. They
may also be a ‘self-image’ (Arnheim 1977/2009) referring
to particular features of a building, for example to its con-
struction, its use, or its social status. In general, a sign is
that which stands for something that is different from itself;
a sign guides our attention towards a level of meaning that
is located beyond sensual appearance. Where sign character
predominates in architecture, its space-shaping and material
palpability tends to recede into the background in favour, for
example, of an iconographic level of meaning in medieval sa-
cred buildings, or in a contemporary shopping street, where
the spatial features of the architecture are appropriated by
advertising, marketing, and commodity character.
According to semiotic theories, the sign’s form and im-
mediately perceptible qualities, defined as the ‘signifier’, re-
fer to something else, to an object or a meaning, which is
referred to as the ‘signified’. As a rule, the link between the
two is regulated by cultural codes whose acquisition is an
aspect of socialization (> readability). In many instances,
architectural form refers – in a way that emerges from the
concrete situation – to a context that lies behind or outside it-
self; it does so for example by citing the forms of other build-
ings at other locations, by referring to historical events, by
transmitting advertising messages, or by visualizing political
programmes. The situation-dependent character of such semi-
otic processes, however, relativizes the unambiguous coordi-
nation of sign and meaning. Often, that to which the sign
refers is itself the point of departure for further references,
which may be prolonged in an endless chain. Superimposed
upon a reference to a specific meaning (denotation) are to
some extent diffuse subsidiary and additional meanings (con-
notations). Jörn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, for example,
which denotes sailing ships and seashells in a picturesque
way, also evokes connotations of floating lightness and de-
monstrative opening.