Architectural Heritage: State of the Visual Literacy
The approach of visual culture has offered a new tool to create, to send, to receive, and to
interpret the message. This is an extensive mean of textual communication. As discussed,
architecture is a form of visual culture. In this way, architectural heritage can convey a visual
message. The message can be interpreted and understood, more or less, in the same way it has
sent. This section will discuss in comprehending architectural heritage as visual literacy.
People use language as a form of social action, a resource of certain realities, which can be
created or ends an achievement. People also use architecture in the similar ways. Le Corbusier19
noted in his book, Towards a New Architecture, that:
But suppose that walls rise toward heaven in such a way that I am moved. I perceive your
intention. Your mood has been gentle, brutal, charming, or noble. The stones you have erected
tell me so. You fix me to the place and my eyes regard it. They behold something which
expresses a thought. A thought which reveals itself without word or sound, but solely by means
of shapes which stand in a certain relationship to one another. These shapes are such that they
are clearly revealed in light. The relationships between them have not necessarily any reference
to what is practical or descriptive. They are a mathematical creation of our mind. They are the
language of Architecture. By the use of raw materials and starting from conditions more or less
utilitarian, you have established certain relationships which have aroused my emotion. This is
Architecture.