The old concept of a building is only shelter have changed in architecture since 16th century, the task of architecture and how a building should be more than an aesthetic object or a functional solution, this is key to the creation of meaning in architecture.
A building should be instrument to confront the Cosmos, this means a building should not be reduced to an image but should allow for a full spatial experience.Why meaning?
Meaning provides the individual with a sense of purpose, meaning grasped through an embodied encounter, intuition and empathy.
You can sort of sense that architecture is kind of mediation between individual human and the bigger world and nature. The architecture allows for a safe and convenient location for people to gather, these buildings act as a safe heaven.
In the term of psychology, James HILLMAN the American psychologist explains that in the psyche and dreams, the zone above our heads is that of spiritual aspiration which is why in traditional buildings it is celebrated in domes, vaults and painted ceiling. To instead put pipes and ducts just above our heads and screen them with the tackiest suspended ceiling tiles is thus the ultimate to our fundamental humanity, the starkest sign of how modern civilization has lost sight of what should be its ennobling purposes.
Ref: Meaning in architecture by Charles Jencks 1969
