Beliefs about systems. Architectural objects (as wholes) are systems or system-like, in that they constitute sets of interrelated structural components, with characteristic behavior or processes yielding outputs from inputs, and where the parts are connected by distinctive structural and behavioral relations (Boyce 1969). That we take whole architectural objects to be (or to be represented as) systems or system-like suggests how architectural beliefs are distinctive among beliefs about artworks. In particular, we have beliefs about architectural objects that reflect functions and interactions of (1) components individually and as parts of systemic wholes, (2) systems as parts of broader environmental contexts, and (3) persons’ behaviors within the systems.  Whereas the first two functional and interactional features are typical to all design, the third feature marks architecture as an artform that, in providing an immersive and systemic physical environment, intensely draws on and shapes social, psychological, and economic features of experience. Our beliefs about architectural objects and interactions with and in them are shaped correspondingly, in ways that do not arise in engagement with other artforms. 