A Study of the influence of mass media advertising on architectural taste and imagination, with special reference to communicating the meanings of architecture

Abstract

Architecture is a medium of communication. It communicates emotive meanings to observers as it is fundamentally an Art. The form and shaping are the key elements through which architecture can be communicated. The form can be further divided into; scale, proportion and spatial composition, where as shaping includes colour, texture, elements such as fenestration etc. From the eighteenth century onwards, the role of the designer in the process of meaning formation has often been seen in terms of the model of communication. The designer is compared to a speaker who has something to say, the building is conceived as a statement and the clients, users and interpreters (collectively observers) are regarded as constituting an audience. The full appreciation and evaluation of quality and success of a design depends on an understanding of its meaning and the way in which perceptual variables are used to achieve and communicate it. It seems that, subject of meaning and its communication in architecture should begin to receive considerable attention as it was neglected for long time period. It is true to state that the interest of meaning formation has continued and indeed grown since then, but less attention was paid to communicate those meanings. As a result, people tend to assign meanings to those which influenced by several factors. Growth of mass communication since the late 1940's has been influencing people in many ways both consciously and subconsciously, mean directly and indirectly. These images are printed, painted, photographed and stenciled in an animated or still form. Considered as shared by many these visual and auditory images have become a set of common signs or symbols to which we can readily relate. Their power derives from materialistic and commercial purposes