Space organization and organization of meaning

An altarcito enclosed inside a parking structure. Personal archives.

¨Space organization (....) is a more fundamental property of the environment than is shape, the materials that give it physical expression and other characteristics, which can more usefully be seen as an aspect of the organization of meaning. The organization of meaning can then be separated from the organization of space, both conceptually and in fact, as already notes.

While space organization itself expresses meaning and has communicative properties, meaning is often expressed through signs, materials, colors, forms, sizes, furnishings, landscaping, maintenance, and the like (...) and by people themselves. Thus spatial meanings can be indicated by walls or other sharp breaks, or by gradients or transitions. They can be indicate by sanctity (the presence of religious symbols), by planting, by various objects or furnishings -of buildings or urban spaces, by treatment of floor or ground surfaces or level changes, by the presence of particular people, and so on -that is by fixed, semifixed and non fixed feature elements.¨

La Ultima Cena, on the water heater enclosure. See more religious elements on the screen door. Personal archives.

Amos Rapoport. The Meaning of the Built Environment. P. 181, chapter Environment, Meaning and Communication. California, 1982