Wanted: Umberto Eco Quote On Architecture
I’m translating a text I’ve written into English, in which I’m quoting Umberto Eco from the Swedish translation of his out of print La struttura assente. In this book, Eco devotes several chapters to a discussion on semiotics and architecture. The passage I’m quoting, and would like the English translation of, can be found on the first page of the major chapter titled “Function and the Sign” (or something equivalent).
Here’s my attempt at a translation:
We must make clear that the term “architecture” here and in the rest of the book is used to signify the actual architectural phenomena, that is, building plans and city planning. Let us for the moment postpone the answer to the question about whether the definitions we will give are applicable to every plan for a change of reality on the three-dimensional level, with the intention of enabling the establishment of any function connected to social life (a definition including, for instance, planning of one’s clothes in their function as social characteristic and means of coexistence; the culinary planning, not so much concerning something valued as life-supporting, but in its function of context-construction with social function and symbolic connotation, like for instance menu, banquet etc. This definition excludes, however, the arrangement of three-dimensional objects, whose primary purpose isn’t use but contemplation, such as for instance works of art or theatre plays, while it includes those constructional phenomena relating to stage design, functioning as instrument in relation to other phases of acting etc.)
This book was later completely revised and released as A Theory of Semiotics, but judging from its table of contents and index, the topic of architecture seems almost completely dropped.
So, if you have a copy of The Absent Structure and could send me the correct English translation, I would be very grateful.