Design and the Constitution of Semantic or Conceptual Meaning

The main argument of the essay is that elements of design often contribute to the constitution of meaning in design objects even when that meaning is strictly of the type we typically think of as independent of stylistic considerations: the kind of meaning which is that of words, concepts, and statements. We focus in particular on the work and thought of the architect Robert Venturi. A subsidiary argument, aimed to secure the findings of the main argument, concerns the widespread postmodern line of thought that meaning in general is necessarily indeterminate and unreliable. We argue that this idea itself in fact makes equal room for the opposite conclusion: that (in this context) the meanings which design objects present are often fully the genuine meanings of the objects or the other signifieds they express.