Abstract
Architectual environment in this study means a language and meaning complex which makes communication between human beings and environment possible. The purpose of this study is to propose a semiotic approach to analyze and examine meaning, as a semiotic system, and its effects, focusing on the generative meaning in the relationship between human beings and environment. For this purpose, it examines the academic status of modern semiotics in postmodernism and the possibility of its being metalanguatge for a study of a variety of cultural phenomena and desigv. It also provides two viewpoints as propositions for its analysis: it explains the necessity of environmental-discoursive attitude and social-semiotic viewpoint which understands environment as social-cultural reflectors. Finally, it provides framework and all the interpretative procedures for analysis of environmental meanings on the basis of the approach of semiotics of space. By applying the methods proposed this study to the case studies, it also proves validity of this approach and the potentialities of the application of semiotics. This study emphasizes not only denotative configuration of the architectural environment but also its connotative meanings. It maintains that designers, architects, and theorists should realize correctly today's changed value system and social and aesthetic paradigms. It also stresses the necessity of development of the new architectural language and meaning system.