Second I will discuss the symbolism of the two buildings. The symbolism of both shows that the key images of both buildings depends on the perspective from which the building is viewed. The author talks of a 'colossal artichoke...a blooming flower' when referring to the Gehry museum while Wright's Guggenheim is in the shape of a seashell. These are all key images as related to the two architects.
The third discussion will focus on the iconography of the buildings which can be described as the viewer's participation in identifying and explaining what is going on in the building.
As mentioned above neither building has a form that follows function and the Gehry creation especially is difficult to tell what is going on in the building. Each perspective of the building from the viewer's participation can be totally different depending on the view. This is especially true of Gehry's museum. Wright's museum has a more difficult time in being 'right' due to its proximity to so many closely cropped buildings. This difficulty is examined in the next paragraph when the composition of both buildings is discussed.
The composition of a building can be defined as "the ordering of relationships: among details, among regions, among details...
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