Making and Inhabiting a Cultural Milieu An Architectural Study of Meaning and Dong Architecture in Southern China

Abstract

This thesis explores the relationships between meaning and architecture in a general and theoretical sense, and the practice of making and inhabiting Dong architecture in Southern China in the processes of symbolization and empowerment in Particular. The research involves a cross-disciplinary combination of. Anthropology, ethnography, sociology, history and architecture. However, it is essentially an architectural study based on both fieldwork and literature research. A specific genre of writing architecture is developed in-between a theoretical rhetoric and a conventional narrative to form a constitutive critique of architecture and culture. Three main arguments are developed in this thesis. First, the meaning of architecture, tile allegory, is tacit. Second, the reification of architectural symbolism is made possible in the processes of making and inhabiting architecture. And third, architecture is not in a position to communicate literal meaning as does language; on the contrary, architecture is empowering in the disposition of agents' cultural practice.