| The ways in which architectural features guide viewers to construct a particular kind of message is the focus of this study. The research question directing this inquiry is: How does a viewer formulate a message from a building?;Stephen Toulmin's model of argument is used as a starting point to discover the procedure by which viewers formulate a message from a building. It includes two components relevant to the assessment of architecture--the grounds (physical elements of the building) and claim (a message a viewer could derive from the physical structure of the building). The analyses of the buildings were conducted in an effort to discover the movement or process between viewers' observations of the physical features of a building and the claim they might infer from those features--the equivalent of what Toulmin labels the warrant.;The three buildings analyzed were designed by Michael Graves and include: the Portland Public Service Building in Portland, Oregon; the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library in San Juan Capistrano, California; and the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky. For each building, the presented or physical elements of the structure were identified; the ways in which those elements were likely to lead the viewer in terms of themes and references were then named; and finally, the rhetorical strategies that served as bridges to the message were discovered. As a result of the analyses, a three-step procedure was developed that explains how a viewer arrives at a message: (1) identification of presented elements; (2) processing of elements; and (3) formulation of the claim. |
