Architektura i pojęcie wypowiedzi

Abstract

The article is an attempt at establishing whether architecture lends itself to “reading”. The reflections were inspired by the digressions on architecture and the print contained in the novel „Cathedrale Sainte Marie de Paris” by Victor Hugo. This outstanding representative of Romanticism in literature made a point that well before the invention of the print architecture played the role of the chronicler of human history. Importantly, the invention of print spelled the death of architecture, which had no superiors to follow that hallmark invention. Hugo ascribes a particular role to the Gothic style. The article outlines the standing of the European architecture in Hugo’s time, devoting considerable space to the Neo-Gothic in a variety of its representations (a style that featured prominently in the architecture of the epoch). However, this presentation is not merely an attempt to show formal differences, but predominantly to illuminate the different perceptions of architecture in the Middle Ages and in Romanticism. The linguistic code that enables the “reading” of architecture receives emphasis in the reflections. The author concludes by presenting several examples of “reading” the architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries and of today.