Back one page. Our senses are the means by which we receive information. It should be noted that in sensation, the corporal emerges as the core of subjective and objective cognition. In terms of architecture, it is our aesthetic apprehension of the corporal that informs us, through our senses, of the cultural value and content of a building.
Buildings invariably are signifiers, they reveal, represent, resemble and express.
They are, without question, artifacts or physical proponents of larger paradigms. What and how something is signified, is the most important question for architecture and for any community which builds. When the Catholic Church intends to build a sacred space, and chooses an architect to conceive of a plan and images for that space, the community should take it very seriously. If, for example, a Modernist architect is asked to actualize the what and how of a sacred space - the community should be concerned about how he might articulate their experience of religion and what that experience might be. This is because Modernist architecture, I would submit, lacks a theoretical foundation to create a representational, expressive or metaphorical discourse to signify the wellspring of customs, rituals, sacraments, remembrances, essences, catechisms, symbols, miracles or atmospheres for worship that embody the Catholic faith.