Intertextuality or Indeterminancy? Re-examining Meanings in Contemporary Indian Architecture

摘要

This paper makes a critique of an arts museum in India, the Jawahar Kala Kendra, designed by Charles Correa so as to discuss the complex issues of architectural legibility in indigenous cultural contexts. While the contemporary discourse in architecture hinges on intertextuatity based on Post structuralist and Deconstructivist notions, this paper assumes that rather than aiding architectural legibility these views are detrimental. This is because, the increased focus of intertextuality in architectural discourse sometimes leads to fuzziness and indeterminancy. and indeterminancy leads to lack of legibility in architecture - especially in cultures were signs are formed by consensus, and are a part and parcel of the cultural identity. To counter indeterminacy, the framework of semiotics as promoted by Eco (1986) needs to be revisited. Eco suggests that meanings should be derived from "cultural codes" rather than from "behavior." because meanings derived from cultural codes are substantiated through time and hence determinate, whereas meanings based on behavior are tenuous and indeterminate. For Eco. indeterminancy of architectural sign disposes architecture to a number of indeterminate uses - or in other words, to no use in particular, rendering them useless. On the other hand while architectural objects are determinate they point to evidence to cultural codes and hence become legible. The task of this paper is then to investigate Correa's architecture based on three criteria - Firstly, to identify the meanings of appropriate signs, secondly to examine the issue of their legibility based on cultural codes and thirdly to analyze whether they correspond to the contemporary reality.