Abstract:

In the criticism, introspection and the followed defense of Modern Architecture since mid-20th century, the architecture industry has drawn on the concepts and theories of the linguistics to discuss whether the architecture language is communicative or not, which is closely related to “the linguistic turn” launched by the Western philosophy circle. Post-modern architects accept that architecture is a kind of language with the function of communication. However, different architects have different opinions over whether architecture’s convey of information should be viewed from the aspect of pragmatics or semantics. On the other hand, some architects of Deconstruction deny the communication feature of modern architecture. Moreover, they create broken architecture forms so as to align with the theme of deconstruction. Habermas considers the crisis of modern architecture is rooted in the modern society itself. According to him, only by the replacement of instrumental rationality with communicative rationality so that the “life-world” would not be controlled by social system, we can fundamentally change the inconsistency of the modern architecture, which shows his higher vision.

Key words: modern architecture, the linguistic turn, pragmatics, communicative rationality