Semantical and Pragmatical Dimensions of Drchitectural Object: Towards Wittgensteinian Approach to the Architectural Studies

Abstract

This article suggests a development of sociological approach to the study of architectural objects basing on Wittgensteinian sociology. The first part of this text is devoted to a critique of explanatory models common to contemporary sociological studies of architecture. The criticism focuses on re-description and interpretation of architectural objects in terms of 'real social relations' standing behind them. This approach is said to be a result of "Enlightenment attitudes" inherited by contemporary sociological theory from classical projects. The principal aim of Enlightenment may be said to be as follows: discovering (and un-covering) hidden social structures that cannot be grasped by direct observation, nevertheless which stand behind and determine the flow of social life. The second part of the article is intended to develop an alternative research agenda. Referring to the works of Peter Winch, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Manchester school of ethnomethodology, I state that sociological study of architecture should abandon its preoccupation with investigating hidden causes and meanings of architectural objects which are determined by a wider social context. Instead sociologists have to focus on the study of ordinary acts which constitute meanings via the processes of everyday interactions. The latter approach is applied to the case-analysis of making sense of architectural objects at contemporary art festival 'Archstoyanie'.