Basic Premise: 

 

As a product of structuralism, culture is symbolic.  It is seen as existing in the minds of individuals.  The methodology employed in studies of space syntax today, comes primarily from the work of Bill Hillier and his colleagues, architects influenced by anthropology and structuralism in particular.  The theory of space syntax, laid out in 1984 in The social logic of space posits that information about social organization can be revealed through the study of spatial configurations.  In this view, buildings are constructed to order space (Ferguson 1996). The most basic structure is a cell.  Cells can be added on to one another to create settlements, or they can be subdivided, forming buildings. 

Because many more people have access to external space, studies focusing on this are by nature somewhat more generalized.  Mathematical formulae are employed to analyze the site and with this concave and convex maps are constructed.  Convexity indicates that two individuals standing anywhere in a given space would be able to see one another.  Concavity indicates that some sort of barrier would have limited sight.  More statistical analyses are conducted and, eventually, a distinction between “shallow” and “deep” sites can be made, with the latter exhibiting more barriers limiting access (Stone 2000). 

Buildings tend to control access much more carefully and researchers undertaking study of a building look at its permeability.  An access graph is composed with nodes representing cells and lines representing doorways to another section of the building.  Once graphed, symmetry  and distributedness of the building can be assessed.  Symmetry deals with accessibility of rooms within the structure and distributedness is related to access limited by hierarchical control.  Essentially, a symmetric system allows equal access to cells within a building while asymmetry requires passage through specific cells to get to parts of the building.  When there are multiple routes leading to a room, a configuration is considered distributed.  If only one route exits, it is nondistributed (Van Dyke 1999: 462).

 

From left to right: illustrated examples of symmetric access graph; asymmetric access graph; distributed access graph; and non-distributed access graph.  Adapted from Ferguson 1996. 

Buildings that are symmetrical and distributed imply integration.  Asymmetry and nondistributed structures imply segregation.  Hillier associates the first of these with Durkheim’s model of organic social solidarity and the latter with mechanical solidarity.  Ferguson sees this distinction between these forms of solidarity as having “more heuristic than explanatory value” (Ferguson 1996: 21).  Indeed, many of the people who incorporate space syntax analyses into their work do not bring Durkheim’s models into their work.  Archaeologists have employed various other theories, one of the more prevalent being structuration, to interpret the data received in analysis.

 

Space syntax has its limitations.  It can be applied to parts of the built environment that control movement through space.  In archaeology, it is particularly difficult to apply space syntax to impermanent structures that leave negligible traces in the archaeological record.  Dawson (2002) was able to analyze Inuit snow houses from 1915 with the aid of documentary sources, indicating that it can be done given the right circumstances.  Difficulties are also encountered when sections of structures have not been preserved.

 

Origins and History: 

 

Archaeologists have been interested in the social information constructed space can yield since the late part of the processual movement (Brusaco 2003: 143).  The theoretical basis for studies of space syntax developed in the decade prior to this, with Lévi-Strauss' work on structuralism. 

 

The roots of Structuralist Anthropology lie in linguistics.  In the early 1900s, Ferdinand de Saussure introduced semiotics, the study of the operation of signs and symbols, to the field of linguistics.  “Semiotics is … based on the assumption that insofar as human actions or productions convey meaning, insofar as they function as signs, there must be an underlying system of conventions and distinctions which make this meaning possible” (Culler 1986: 106).  This idea of underlying structure was adopted by Lévi-Strauss who was interested in using it to understand social life. 

 

In Lévi-Strauss'  view, the world is perceived through the senses and the information that is perceived moves to the brain where it is dichotomized for organization and interpretation.  In other words, the brain breaks the information down into ordered sets of polar opposites.  What is perceived is hot or cold; wet or dry; bright or dark.  This order emerges subconsciously in the construction of culture.  It can be found in all cultural products, be it myth, kinship or material culture (Leach 1970, Moore 2000).

 

The folklorist Henry Glassie was the first to use this theory to analyze architecture.  In 1975 he published Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, a project six years in the making.  Glassie's position as a folklorist perhaps allowed him to take up such a study at a time when archaeologists were concerned with other issues.  In the preface of Folk Housing, Glassie comments on the state of social scientific theory in the 1970s, saying "many of today's cleverest and most creative thinkers have abandoned the field of history in a quest for human principles.  It follows then that they lost interest in the past" (1975: vii-viii). There is no doubt that in the quest for scientific anlaysis, the potential of structuralist models was overlooked by many archaeologists.

 

Glassie's publication was met with reservation.  Some, like Deetz, advocated continued study in the structuralist vein and though some took up the torch, others did not.  Indeed the next researcher to make a significant contribution in the study of space syntax did not reference Glassie’s study at all.

           

Space syntax was given its formal name by Bill Hillier, who in the late 1970s and early 80s began conducting experiments to explore how global patterns in architecture emerge.  In an attempt to identify causal features for particular forms, he looked at restrictions imposed on those forms, and the modern study of space syntax was born. In 1984 Hillier and Julienne Hanson published The social logic of space in which they lay out the theoretical groundwork for space syntax and the methods to apply it.  Both continue to study and publish on the relationship between social life and spatial organization.    

 

Cultural Context:

 

 When Claude Lévi-Strauss befriended the linguist Roman Jakobson, his take on anthropology was transformed.  But it is likely that had the two never met, Lévi-Strauss would have been introduced to some linguistics concepts anyway.  When he came to New York to escape WWII, the field of linguistics was beginning to blossom in the United States.  During the First World War, the Department of Defense came to recognize the importance of training personnel in different languages.  Because of this, money was being poured into the development of the field.  Also, the works of Edward Sapir and Franz Boas in the early part of the 20th Century had made an impact on those studying language.  In fact, while Lévi-Strauss was in New York, he interacted with Boas, whose work he considered an essential part of the formation of many of his own theories (Eribon 1991: 39).  The linguistic fluorescence of the first half of the 20th century was instrumental in the development of structuralism in anthropology.  When structuralism was popularized in the 1960s, it in turn influenced some young scholars who became the leading proponents of space syntax, including Henry Glassie, Bill Hillier and James Deetz.

 

Other precursors to the development of space syntax have their roots in the World Wars as well.  Post-war Britain sought to bring people back to the cities and at the same time clean up slums. During the 1960s, large public housing developments were installed in cities in the form of high rise flats.  Many of these programs failed and it was this failure that initiated the development of space syntax theory by Hillier.  As an architect, Hillier’s concern was not to create new social theory but to construct better buildings.  He began research that was intended to determine if architectural practices had contributed to the failure of public housing projects during the 1960s and 70s.  In reality a variety of factors were to blame, but architectural practice was one of them.  Architects had designed buildings without taking into account the preferences of the people who were to inhabit them.  So focused were modern architects on the rational, functional form that they did not recognize plans that afforded little privacy and those that promoted crime. Indeed, many of the designs of architects were naively intended to instill moral values yet only brought depravity to the buildings (Brolin 1976).

 

References Cited