Symbolic Space

What is environmental symbology?

Environmental symbology is the study of the symbolic significance of human space. An environmental symbologist considers many contexts of symbolic meaning, including:

• Personal – what is the personal significance of giving a teenager his own room?
• Interpersonal – why might a divorcing couple fight for months over who gets the coffee table?
• Socio-cultural – what is the symbolic meaning of the tabernacle in a Catholic church, and what are the behavioral implications of that meaning?
• Mythic – how is the symbolism of leaving home as losing innocence communicated in fairy tales?

The broader term symbology refers to the study of symbols and their contextual use, and is related to a variety of fields: anthropology (symbolic anthropology), communication (semiotics), architecture (architectonic analysis), religion, art history (iconography) and interior design (symbology of space). Because the foundations of symbology extend beyond the boundaries of any particular field of research, current theory related to symbology of the human environment has a similar interdisciplinary framework. Fields of interest include: anthropology, communication, culture, behavior, design psychology, environmental psychology, psychology, religious symbolism, ritual, sacred space, semiotics, and sociology.

What is a symbol?

The term “symbol” has different meanings in different fields and research contexts; for clarity I use the term “artifact” in my own research to describe symbolic aspects of the human environment. You may find it useful to know that Carl Jung, who studied the use of symbols in dreams (Man and His Symbols), made a significant distinction between symbols and signs. A symbol, unlike a sign, has personal significance beyond its common meaning. To Jung, the appearance of a horse in a dream has two values. As a sign, a horse represents a horse in real life. As a symbol, a horse can represent an abstract concept like freedom. According to Jung the symbolic meaning of the horse is determined unconsciously by the dreamer.

Erich Fromm, author of The Forgotten Language, makes a similar distinction: Fromm’s conventional symbols are comparable to Jung’s signs and Fromm would call Jung’s symbols “universal symbols”. Victor Turnerfirst began researching the use of symbols in social rituals and rites of passage in the 1950’s. Turner used terms such as “comparative symbology” and “processual symbolic analysis” to describe his work.

View from my grandmother's porch

The lens of an environmental symbologist

For a time, when I was young, we lived with my grandmother in a row house in Pennsylvania. Each porch was divided by a low railing that served as a physical barrier. Occasionally one of our toys would end up on a neighboring porch and we would run to my grandmother to get permission to retrieve it. It wasn’t the railing that kept us off the porch next door, but rather the symbolic barrier between properties; my grandmother would have kicked our butts if she had caught us on a neighbor’s porch.

Looking back through the lens of an environmental symbologist I can recognize some of the factors that shaped this childhood experience. I can describe, if not define, the neighorhood’s social compact that established and protected personal territories. I can identify the manipulation of decorative elements to individuate one house from another: paint colors, decorative trim, mailboxes, door mats, planters and yard kitsch.

An introductory reading list

There are several good books out there that will introduce you to the world of symbology. If you’re looking for more in depth reading, you’ll have to contact me directly. In the meantime, here are two easy reads that you may find informative:

• Clare Cooper Marcus’ House as a Mirror of Self (1995), or her earlier article House as a Symbol of Self, link dream symbology (see Jung, below) to the symbolic meaning of designed space. As the title implies, Cooper Marcus addresses how our homes are expressions of our inner feelings, hopes and fears. The text is an easy read, even for those with no background in psychology or symbolism. This book would be my first suggested resource to anyone.
• Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols (1964) was written specifically to introduce some of Jung’s most basic and important theories to the average reader. It was my first exposure to his work and I still find the book broadly informative on the subject of symbology in dreams, art, and popular culture, if not particularly indepth in regard to Jung’s archetypes (which, I would argue, are vital to understanding his foundational theories).

Also, manuscript of mine (A review of environmental symbology: Origins and contributions toward a theoretical framework) appears in the Jan 2011 issue of the Journal of Interior Design. Or, if you’d like to take the blue pill, you can get an overview of some important aspects of symbology from Wikipedia and then be on your merry way:

• Symbolic anthropology
• Semiotics (semantics, syntactics, pragmatics)
• Iconography (art history)

I am always looking for ways to improve this short introduction to the topic of environmental symbology. If you have comments, suggestions, or questions you are welcome to post those below.