The Code in the Project Drawing of Civil Engineers in the XIX Century
Authors: Фабио  , Fabio Fabbrini Mikelandzhelo 
Published: May 2015

Drawing is a manifestation of symbolic activity of
man, that is, its ability to represent things by means of signs which
constitute the substitutes of those things. For its nature, it’s intended
to convey meanings among individuals who recognize it, it
is therefore a means of communication. In this context, the project
drawing has a place which is a means of communication by which
information is transmitted through the reduction of the concept in
concrete and legible signs.
These signs semantically allow the reading and the perception
of the orderly content that constitutes the signifier; such signs
represent the elementary cell of the graph as binary action among
two abstract classes of concepts: the meaning and the signifier. The
first one (the meaning) is the mental image that is produced it,
depends on the experience and is induced by the second (the signifier)
which is the physical vehicle, concretely materialized with an
ИСТОРИЯ НАУКИ И ТЕХНИКИ. БИОГРАФИИ
In the past, the representation of design profited from
some symbol-forms such «architectural orders» or building
types, which were common and certain patterns, but
with the changes of the nineteenth century, it has been
assuming ever greater autonomy and symbolic-expressive
capacities.
The representation, endowed with a very articulated
syntax, results fit to rather reproduce complex representations,
such as the graphs of assemblage of metallic works
or preparation for theirs single components, but also the
diagrams for the temporal planning of the operations of
yard. In the interpretation of the drawing, therefore,
interesting to define the relationship between the content
of the information and the characteristics of the communication
medium.
The versatile design allows you to articulate it in multiple
uses, each expressed with a specific pattern; in the
nineteenth century has gone by defining the division of
the models into three classes, for the purposes of representation,
which has largely remained unchanged up to
us: the iconic models that communicate the concept
trying to maintain the qualitative and quantitative aspects,
the logic models that reproduce the phenomenon through
the use of symbols and relations between them and the
verbal patterns that represent the phenomenon by describing
lexical character and properties. The latter have a
dual nature, of instructions or information. Information
go to complete the information of the representation with
denominations, attributions of materials, dimensions,
explanation of the characteristics of the surfaces of the
conservation status. Instructions, serve to explain the
context in which you put the subject of the representation
with formal definitions and descriptions. It is easy to
imagine that the oral model doesn´t exhaust him in a
simple terminological description, but consists mainly of
numerical specifications to a graphic support which they
refer. In the drawing of project it doesn’t use a single
model, but it is assisted to their mutual integration, with
the prominence of one in comparison to the others according
to the object represented of the period and of the
professional sector which refers.
In the given plans it’s evident the heterogeneity of the
employed style; the different kind of the object does not
affect the model: the bulkhead of a rail yard has markimage.
The system of signs can be organized in a code when it
allows the recipient an unambiguous interpretation of the written
message. It becomes, therefore, necessary to determine the encoding
used in the act of writing the graphics, in order to ensure an
exact decoding, avoiding any possible ambiguity in the subsequent
phase of reading.