A Phenomenology Study On The Semiotic Languages In The Space Syntax

In the late 19th and early 20th century,the linguistic turn and development of semeiology appearing in Western philosophy infused new blood into city planning and architecture.However,the difference between"professionalism" of space study and philosophy resulted in the difference in the process and way of knowing the world of thinking subjects.Research on spatial symbolic language was divided into two camps-logical positivism and the philosophical dimension of phenomenology.Fortunately,some theories are working to bridge the gap.As a mature school of thought of architecture theory,space syntax made some effort for such bridging.The theory of space syntax has the characteristics of logical positivism.Firstly,it developed a symbolic vocabulary to describe space.Secondly,the abstract symbolic vocabulary can be used to calculate the space awareness,movement and visibility of cities.Thirdly,through simulated calculation,we can conduct research into spatial visibility and space image.Researchers hold that,only through this symbolic vocabulary can we achieve visual calculation of space study.The aim of calculation is to obtain intuitive cognition of complex space system.The theory of space syntax also has the characteristics of the philosophical dimension of phenomenology.The biggest characteristic of phenomenology is the simulation of the true conception of people in real objective space.Symbolic language developed by space syntax is exactly a medium to connect rational world and the precepted material world.They simulate the real perception of bodies in daily life and give space connotation through relevance.In continued practice,the accumulated phenomenon is read as "move forward" "move backward" "turn" and "multi-array view point connection".Revealing the complicated connection between spaces is consistent with the way human society know and organize space.Symbolic vocabulary thus gained some concepts of on the spot experience to achieve the notion of Embodied Diagram proposed by Rhth Conroy Dalton.This provides entrance for the phenomenology direction of thinking of symbolic vocabulary of"space syntax".Though the symbolic vocabulary of "space syntax" covers the two aspects of space language development,there is still imperfection.Syntax symbolic vocabulary on the basis of visibility is still simulation of visual physics and has a non-negligible gap in the comparison of the comprehensive experience of bodies in phenomenology.Through revealing this phenomenon,we hope to give a simple guide to the development direction of the description language of space syntax theory from the dimension of phenomenology and thus enrich the phenomenology connotation of symbolic language.