Thinking About Architectural Conception with Peirce
Based on an experience of acquaintances with architects, and more particularly with the teaching of architecture, this contribution, based on Peircian semiotics, proposes to build a conceptual apparatus allowing to understand how architectural work is performed, more specifically how to comprehend the “black box” of design work. The challenge of the article is to explore, starting from the Peircian categories, what composing means as a semiotic process in which the design work constantly oscillates between icon, index and symbol. This approach makes it possible to recognize both, through a dominant relationship with the concept of symbol, the multiple conventions on which the design is based, but also, through the concepts of icon and index, the large part of infra-discursive and infra-propositional intelligence on which it is based. In a context where the specificity of architectural work is under threat from the already old competition with engineers, but more and more from specialists in computer-assisted design, or even with designers, not to mention the development of co-design processes in which the architect’s own competence could be lost, the text seeks to define what constitutes the proper of architectural design, a competency patiently acquired through what can be defined as a learning process conceived as “training”, as “drill”, in these pre-prepared spaces that are “ateliers”, “workshops”, “studios”...