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    "The Eiffel tower" was an ooiect lesson for architects in reading urban form. In an application 01 post-8aussurean linguistics to the city, Barthes interpreted the tower as the iconic center of a reciprocal optical system. Barthes's theory of the "infinitely metaphorical nature 01 urban discourse" made the city a privileged semiological context.

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    "The Eiffel tower" was an ooiect lesson for architects in reading urban form. In an application 01 post-8aussurean linguistics to the city, Barthes interpreted the tower as the iconic center of a reciprocal optical system. Barthes's theory of the "infinitely metaphorical nature 01 urban discourse" made the city a privileged semiological context.

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    433 views7 pages

    Barthes - Semiology and Urbanism

    Uploaded by

    Bruno Schiavo
    "The Eiffel tower" was an ooiect lesson for architects in reading urban form. In an application 01 post-8aussurean linguistics to the city, Barthes interpreted the tower as the iconic center of a reciprocal optical system. Barthes's theory of the "infinitely metaphorical nature 01 urban discourse" made the city a privileged semiological context.

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    of 7
    1967 “Sel ani tone wea ot ste ee aber le en ‘onimin te tamat gal bars rear fic gt aaa one ‘sey of 864" i! owe” was an obit son or oo near ‘roan an ocean pat Savsreaningucts ote cy, Barta ‘peed rm gostnocen rumen Pars ase ric cowe 8 treba opie ey arc acacia aes nt cyan {vr poral wor 3 Hector hel ry ed ‘carer pe a0 ep 97 eae boca tines ig tse wer ry kerio al mado 20 pwetl& met artes ew eect he woud ar repo on eA ct nouese cae son eoect or ancl (oe Wee teh ard tere oggerg a arr eee tg eye ‘Botte cone by Yio royal pace, was nea Pe Tow lan egy cen abe pronerce sey wn il Gamer hear ahora nae cf wan deco” ‘tectonc cy comeing an here rrr eoero8 ‘ad merge mado 3 raged erica crt "apo he ‘ts ine nya cows. Bm Taginge Be ch wots ere ray ope oh Bares agus Inte tecdesrse Somugy ogra! conan Rare pain yo Wn tetera depacenat ye ey 0s, Pe orc es sn senouny one at econo by he wing of Bates ‘Unter Eo ay, Nn Cony Anmten anne ees ‘oes sgerrachl shl heey get ad carb Irovetcencze bd earns cree, nig Pe ind Hon peat te mara uc na set Ken eh one Faso ran om {Goa i conaricara tr an ering) ard Crsean Nabe Ses moons Acticare 15 ere Ssh obra epochs encarag an yogy meyer suc fhe Vr ‘pester te pope lam an scince paso ety Buesnn unas oe ty te Agere sree Maro Gant {eo Oana Met erg ace ae al een oon ‘etre el ad nad made he move Dyer eon A std eng en Uh cuneate ee ‘eta lee ly ibe sper adits ends ort meee ‘he oy la uesana se tse cars, of eros wth The Penne fe Teu(973) 89st ts: Fm clogs athe Unies pb rt ot Acasa 9 9 1967 Oral ten nOp. oF 10(167) mr tatan Fret pasate Franch meonacae #hupuns 159(Oscorew 170) Paid gah Pt a, The Sar Caerge bane Reha Hower ew ‘Semiotogy and Urbanism Roland Barthes “The subject of tis cacussion concerns a cerain number ofthe problems of urban emily. ‘But must acd tha anyone who was to skeich a smilie ofthe cymes be stonce a sericiogis (a speciakstin signs), a geographer, ahitorian. anurans, an ‘exchitect, and prooably @psychoanaiyst Since tis obvious that is is ft my case— ‘asa matter of fac, lam none o a hs excep, barely. a serotgit—the reflections | shal present to you ae those ofan amateur, nthe etymological sense ofthe wore an amateur of sign, one who love signs, an amateur of cts, one who loves Be cy. Foctlove both tec and signs. And is double love (whichis probably, as amater iat only one lve) impale me fo beleve, perhaps win acontain presurpton, nthe possibly ofa seriotic ofthe cy, Onwhatconditons or rather wit what precautions ‘and what prliirarie will an urban semis be possible? “This is the theme of he reflections shall present. should ke est ofa o eming you avery fama bing which wil serve as 8 pln of departure: human space in ‘general (and pot only urban space) has always been a signing space. Scintfc ‘2e09:a6hy and especially modem cartography can be considered as kin of ‘blteraton, a censrship objectivity has imposed oon signcaon (an objoctty \whichiza formtke any othe oftheimago-epertove). And, before speaking fhe ct | should lke to recall several phenamena ofthe cultural history ofthe West, more ‘specticalyofGreekantquy:thehsran habit, ho“oekouréne,"aswe canghempse \U trough the fat maps ofthe Grock qoographore: Anatimandor, Hocataous, o trough the mertal carograpty of @ man tke Herodotus, consties a vertable cliscourse. wititsymmetes,tsoppestonsof tes, wih ts syrtaxandits paradigms. ‘Amapl he woré by Herodotus, rapticalyrekzed,sconstuctd ke alerqusge, fe a sentence, Ike 2 poe. on ceptions: et counties and cold counties: hen on the ‘ppeion between men on the one rand, and monsters and chimeras one ober tiwetumfromgeograpticalspacetourbanspace sticty speaking, ehareming youthathe raion teeny creatodtorshrconturyAthensby amanike Ceshenes, ‘uy stuctual conception by whic he center alone is prvieged, since al the ‘fiz have rlatone wih thich re athe same tie syrmetical and eversibie.” [A hs peri, the conception ofthe cy was exclusively a signifying one, for the Lbtarian conception ofan urban distioulon based on functions and usages, which Incontestably prevalsn ou day. wil appear much latr en. wad o point cat this Fislrcal eats in the conception of signifying spaces. aly, isinarecentpasthatasucurait ke Lév-Srausshasprocced, Triste Tropique, a orm of urban semiciogy, even on areduced scale, aproposat a Boro vilage whose space he has eudid accocing o an essentially semantic approach. itis svange tha, paral to hese strongly sigiying conceptions of thabited pave, the theoretical labovabons of the urbarsts have not hitherto granted em polmstaken, anything Buta veryredicedstausto problems ofsiiicabon*Ofcoiree there are exceptions ever witershave dscussed the city tems of signification. (One ofthe authors wha has bes expressed this essential signtying nate ol uban spaces, bees, Vicor Huge. In Nore Dare de Pai, Hugo has writen a very oe Caper of an enemy sub irtaligence, “Thi wikia i, whch’ to say the ‘book tha, whicn is o ay the monument By expressing himself hus, Hugo ges {evidence of rather modem way ol conceiving he monument andthe cy, actuaiyas _awiing as an inscription of mann space, This chapter of Hugo's is devoted to the ‘vay between two modes of writing, wing in stone and wring on paper. Moreover, this theme can find its current vosion nthe romarks on wring by a phtosopher ke Jacques Derica, Among present-day urbarists, significant vtualy unmentioned ‘one name stands ou, teceor, thao he Amaican Keun Lynch, who seems tobe losest to these problems of urban semantic insofar as eis concered with conceiving he iy inthe very lems ofthe percelving consciousness. fidentiying {hoimage of the cty nthe readers of thal iy. Buti calty, Lynch's researches. fom the semantic point of vew.remain qute ambiguous:on the onwhanc, there is a whole ‘vocabulary signification inhis work (for example, he gran agood deal of ation tothe readabitly ofthe cy, and hiss a very krporant nation fr us) and, as @ good ‘semantic, he has the sense of clscrte uns: ho has ted to rediscover in urban spacethe ciscontinuous units which wih limits, somewhaleeemblphonernesand ‘semantomes. He cals these units paths, ocoaures, esti, ntersctons, points of reference, These are categories of urls which might ready become semantic Ccategores. Butane other hand, despite thie vocabusay, Lynch has a conception of the cy whic remains more gestalt han structural ‘Aside em those authors who exo eter he notion ofa semantics ofthe iy, we note a growing consciousness ofthe functions of symbole mn urban space. ‘several studies of urbanism based on quanttaine estimations and on motivation. ‘research we see appearing—in spite of eveything, even iis only for memory s ‘seko—the purely qualtave mot of symbolzaton frequently used even today 10 ‘plain thor phenomena. We find for ane urate a relatively Comrnon technique: simuaton; now, to technique of mulation leads, even Hits used in & ‘ater narow and empical spit, ta more thorough inveatigation ofthe concept of ‘model which fa stuctral or atthe vary eas prestucturait concept. A another stage of these studies i urbanism, the demand for sigficaon| ‘appears. We gradualy dscover that there exits a kind of contradiction betwoen, ®igniicalon and another order of phenornona, and that consequenty signification possesses an reducible spect, Forinstance, certain rbanits.orcertainof those "evestgators who ae stuching urban planning, are abiged to note tha, cetan e808, tore exets a confi between te funcional of apart the cy ft us say Ctaneighborhoodor asic and what shoudcallits semariic covert (ts semantic power). Hence they have noted with a certain ngeroueness (but perhaps we must bogin wih ngenuousness) that Rone presen a permanent confit between the ‘unconal necessiies of modem le and the seman burden communicated othe ‘ty by its histo. An his confict between signiicaon and functon constitutes he espaol he urbanss, There als exists a conti between signification and reason, (Fat least betwoon sigiestion and that calcating reason which wants. al he loons oct to be unter recupeated by planing, whereas it isincreasingly ‘obvious hat a cy sa fabric formed not of equa elements whose functions can be inventoried, but of stong elements and ronmavked elements (we know thal the ‘opposition betweonthasignandiieabsenceal sgn, bebveenthe measurable degree land 2010 degree, consiutes one of the major processes inthe elaboration of ‘trscation) Fromal evidence, each cy possesesthis kind f yt: Kewn Lynch has potodas much: hereexissin every ci, omthemoment when tstrulyinhabted ‘by man, and made by him, that basic tytn of sgfcain which ts eppositon, ‘aeration and juxtaposition o marked and nonmarkedelements, Last, there exits ‘anutimate contietbetwoen signcaion ancrealiy tse atleastbetwoer signification {27d that reality of objective geography, the realty of maps. Inveatigaions made by sychosociokgists have shown thal, for example, twoneighborhoods are contiguous wo rely onthe map. ie. on “realy.” on cbjscthty, whereas, fom the moment they ‘receive two deer sgniicaions, they are racicaly spit nthe mage ofthe cy signiicaton i experienced incomplete oppcction o objective dts ‘The ey sa ciscourse, ands discourse actualy language: the cy speaks, ‘otisinhabaars, we speakto ou cy, the city where we are, simply by inhabiing iby \waversngit, byloking ati Yet. he problemisto extract anexpressonlika language ofthe cy" rom he purely metaphorical stage. is metaphorical very easy o speak the language ofthe ctyas we speak tthe languagectthe chemaorolthelanguage ‘olfowers The eal scientiic leap willbe achieved whenwa can speakothe language ‘ofthe city witout metaphor And we can say hal hiss precisely what happened 19 Freud when he frst spoke ofthe language of creams, emptying is expression fis ‘metaphnical mesning inorder to give real meaning, We loo, we mut confront his Problem: how b shit rom metaphor analysis when we speakol the language ofthe ‘e4y? Once again tis to the specials inthe urban phenomenon thal lam refering. foc even tthe ae quite remote from these problems of urban semantics, they have ‘onetieless steady noted (1am quoting the reauts of one invesigaton) that the sable data in he social slences afr form poery adapted to an integration into "models nded, wehave dficuty inserting eto amadel he urban dala supplied us bbypsyehology, sociology. geogrepy, demepraphy, hi isprcisaly because wo lack frat echrique, Pato sys. Consaquerdy, we need anew ecient enerpy node ‘otransfomsuchdeatshilrarimetaphor othe descpondt secon andiishere ‘hetzemicogy(niebroades sensect ne word) may by asilurpredctable development ‘fords seme asisarce Iisnotmy terion nevekehoretheprocedutes tr dcovemng anurbansemilgy ts iely ht such procedures waukcconeencecocang tw uta textin units, ten n debuting these unes nt ermal lasses and, tidy nnd he ‘esol cmbinaionandcttarstermatontrtheseuntsancrtse odes shal confine ‘yee to free cbsensons which have ro cect aon wih he oy but wich might sell erent award an urban seiclogy, insofar ashy craw up a balance sheet or Curent sorlogy and tke account of he fact fa, cen years, fe semologcl “endscape” is longer he sae, ‘The rst observatonis at “symbolism” (which must be undersioods a gonera ‘scoutse concaming signiiction)& ne longer conceived nowadee, a east asa Generale, asa regular corespondence between signers and ighteds. In other words, one notion of omantcs which was fundamental some years ago has became (utdatec isis the lexscon notin, i... hat oa satots of coreeporcingsgniiods and signers. Tis erosion ofthe noton of esicon iso be found in many sectors of ‘search, First cal, theres the cstibutve semantics ol Chemeky/s ciples such ‘8 KalzandFods, whohave launched an atackinfoce againstthelexicon we tan fromthe realmolinguisics that era cree, weeeethathe tematic cricism ‘which has prevaledor some teen or twenty yeas, alleastin Franca and which has formed the essential pat of the studies which we now as the new crcism, ‘onadays intad,romodold tothe detiment ofthe signed which that cram roped te decipher inthe eaim of psychoanalysis, nal, we can nolenger peak of a termoem symbotsm: tis Is Obveusly the dead part of Freud's work: & psychoanaiviclexcenssrolongatconcanable Altishascastacertan cectantho wats symbol, fx this term has always tilloday) suggested that he sigitying relation was based en te signed on he presence ole sno’. Prsraly, use he ward “eymbo" as flaring fo a syrtagmatc andor paracigmatic but no kangen serranc signiyng xganizaton: we must make a very clear cstincton botween te semantic bearing one symbol and tne sytagmatic oF paracigmatic nate of hs same eb, ‘Similar wouldbe an absurd undetakingtosttempto elaborate alescon ofthe signiicatens of he cy by puting sts, neighborhoods, functions on one side, and *gniicatons onthe other, oF rather by puting on one side the ses aricualed as ®oniiersandonthe ther te functonsariclatedas siniteds. Thelsofthefunctons thata cys neighborhoods can assume has been known fora long time tee are by ‘and large some hit unctons ora eighborhcod (atleast for aneighborhoad ofthe ‘center ctyazone which has been cbse studied rom te sociological point of view), ‘This list can ofcourse be completed, enriched, refined, butt wil constiuteonty an _extemely elementary level for semioiogical analysis, level which wll probably have tobe revised subsequently not only cause ofthe weight and pressure exered by history but because, procsaly, the signed ae ke mythical beings, ofan extrome Imprecison, and because ala certain moment they always become the siniirs of ‘something els: the signieds pass, the signers remain. Thehuntforthesigniladcan therefore constitute only a provisional undertaking, The cleo te signed, when we ‘manage to toa it, is eny to aflord usa sot of testimony as to a speci state of he signtyig dstrbuion. Furter, we must note thal we attribute an ever-growing Importance tothe empty sino, othe empty ste ofthe signed. Inher words, he ‘elements are understood as signs more by their own cotelative poston than by thei content. Thus Tokyo. weich is one of the mest intricate urban comploxes imaginable rom the semantic pont ol view, nonetholess possesses a sot of cote. ‘Bunthis center, occupied by the iipeil palace which is surrounded bya deep moat _encihidden by verde is experienced as an empty cone. Asa more gonera rule. the susies made of the urban core of leven cals have shown tat he central point cine contro th city (avery cty possesses a contr), which we cal “eo core" doesnot constiute he culrinating point of any paicularactiviy,butakind of pty “heat ofthe community's nage ft coer. Hore oo we have a somchow ompty place which is necessary othe organization othe rest ofthe cy ‘The second remarks hat symboism must be defined essenbaty as the word of sini, of corelaions, and above all corelaions which can never beimprsened In a ful Signficaton, in a tna signification. Hencelonh, fom the paint of view of escripve technique, the distibuton of elements, i. of signers, “exhausts ‘semantic discover. his is tue forthe Chomekian semantics of Katz and Fodor an even er the anatysee of Lev-Srauss which ae basadon te clarification ofa relaion which snolonger analogicalbuthomologcal isis demonstration made inhisbook ‘on ttemism, one rarely cited). Hence we decover tal we want to produce to ‘semilogy ofthe iy we must intensity. more meticulously. te signing sion. For this, appeal tomy experience as an amateur of cies. We know that. nce cies, there exist cern spaces which presenta vory extended specialization of functions Usis tue, forexample, othe Oriental soukwhere one steuisreservedtorthetarners and another exchsively forthe serait; in Tokyo, certain pts ofthe same neighborhood are quis horogenoous om te funciona point of vw: we fd hore ‘onty bars cr snack bars or paces of entertainment Yel we must go eyond tis est {229201 and nol mt the semantic description ofthe city to hs Ui: we rt ty to ‘dasociate microstuctues in the same way we can isolate ty sentence egrets win along peried: hence we must get into te habit of making a very extended ‘analysis which willead fo ese microstucties, and conwersely we must accustom ‘urseves toa broader analysis, which willead to macrosvuctues, We al knew tat ‘Tokyo is a polynuclear cyt possesses several cores around ve or sx centers; we ‘must eer ocitlerentate somanticaly these centers, which moreover ae cated byraitead stations nother tems, evennthis domain he best model forte semantic study ofthe city wil be furished, | beeve, at east at the start, by the sentence of ctscourse, And here weredecoverViciry Hugo's old ntaiton he oy sa wring: he ‘ran who moves about nthe iy, the cys user (whichis what we al ae, usore the ci) 21 of reader who, accorcng o his obigatons and is movements, “samples ragmentsofthe uterance nordertoactualze them insecte When we move bout ina city, we ae alin the situaton of the reader of Queneau’s 100.000 Mion ‘Poems, where we can fda cifleren poem by changing a single vere; unknown to 1s, We ae someting ik that avant-garde reader when we ar ina cy, Last the thitcobservalonis hainowadaye semiologyneverposiathe existence ‘ta defintve signfed. Which meenshattosigniieds are aways sgnders for aes, ‘2nd reciprocal. I ealiy,n any cutral or even peychoogical complex, we fd ‘ourselves confronied wit infite chains of metaphors whose signiied is away ‘eceesive or sf becoming a signi. This stucre'e boginrng tbe explored, a8 you know, in Laca's psychoanalysis, and ao in the study of wring, whee itis Postated i tis ct actualy expired we apply these nations tothe ily, we shall ‘oubiless beled toemphasiz a derersion which | must say Ihave never seen ced, -Atlmast never coat inthe studi and irweetgntions of urbaniom. Tia dmorcion | should cathe erate mension. The etiam ofthe isthe teaching which we can

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