General esthetic evaluation and connotative meaning in architecture: The use of analogy as a tool

In this study, relationship between facade and connotative meaning is analyzed through symbolic esthetics, and it is aimed to question the connotative meaning with respect to several concepts. The study examines the comments on visual images among architects, architecture students and lay people. The main hypothesis, acknowledging the differences between architects and lay people, is in the anticipation of similarities in group comments, specifically in the cases where image and meaning overlap.The study consists of two parts ?theoretical and experimental. The first section deals with connotative meaning, which is a part of the symbolic esthetics that forms the structure of the study. In this section, the architectural language that is used in the transmission of meaning was discussed within the scope of semiology. Later, connotative meaning was studied through semiology, and the perception of connotative meaning among architects and lay people was discussed with respect to its use as a design input. Depending on this, the relationship between connotative meaning and analogy was established.The experimental study, in the second section, was performed to support the theoretical study. In the experimental study, statistical analyses were conductedto find the similarities and differences between architects and lay people while general comments on images were studied; then, the Lens model was used to examine the cases with overlapping images and meanings with respect to physical components and cognitive concepts. The present study, implemented in terms of experimental esthetics, revealed that similar comments are likely to occur in visual images in the cases with overlapping images and meanings.Keywords : Meaning, Analogy, Lens Model, Experimental Aesthetic Connotative Meaning, Complexity, Familiarity, Influencing.