Exposed interior roof structure seems particularly amenable to sym-
bolic interpretation. Lance LaVine writes of house ridge beams:
As a cultural artifact, the ridge beam is the center of the roof that covers
human habitation. It is this center that preserves the human mind and
spirit, as well as the needs of the human body, and thus this unique build-
ing element has gained a special place in the collective human memory
of place or, perhaps more importantly, of being in places. The ridge of a
house not only centers its roof structure but in so doing becomes a symbol
for a centered existence within that form. It is a unique place in a dwelling
that has come to secure the human psyche as it gathers the live and dead
loads of the roof rafters that it helps to support.^13While still on the subject of roof structure, and considering the mean-
ing embodied in a vaulted roof, LaVine continues: ‘A flat surface may
extend indefinitely without ever protecting an inhabitant at its edges. To
be covered is to have something that wraps around human beings...
The vault of the house covers inhabitants as blankets cover their bed as
the sky covers the earth.’^14
Angus Macdonald also acknowledges the symbolic role of structure in
architecture. In his categorization of possible relationships between
structure and architecture he includes a category, ‘structure symbol-
ized’. Here ‘structure is emphasized visually and constitutes an essential
element of the architectural vocabulary... the “structure symbolized”
approach has been employed almost exclusively as a means of express-
ing the idea of technical progress.. .’.^15 He explains that symbolic intent
can encompass issues other than celebrating technology and explores
the implications of structure symbolizing an ideal – like sustainability.
An implicit assumption that structure plays symbolic roles in architec-
ture underlies this book. For example, Chapter 2 discusses how the
unique detailing of the BRIT School columns symbolizes notions of
innovation and creativity, and how the sombre and giant columns of the
Baumschulenweg Crematorium are likely to be a source of strength for
those who mourn (see Figs 2.1 and 2.13). At the Kunsthal, Rotterdam,
exposed structural detailing that questions conventional attitudes to
aesthetics, expresses the ethos of a museum of modern art (see Figs
7.10 and 7.11), while the elegance of detailing at Bracken House,
London, conveys a sense of quality and prestige (see Fig. 7.39).
As already seen, structure plays a wide range of symbolic roles. While
some symbolic readings are unintended by architects, in other cases archi-
tecture is enriched quite explicitly by exploiting the symbolic potential of
structure, as exemplified in three buildings designed by Daniel Libeskind.