In architecture, a structural element such as a column is both a real column and the sign of a column. In language, on the other hand, the word apple is the sign of a real apple, but the real apple is also the sign of something else, such as the "Big Apple" or the sign of temptation in the Garden of Eden. There is already a metaphoric and therefore representational condition in the object apple that reaches beyond the object itself. Thus the real apple has both a conventional relationship to the sign apple and also becomes a sign of this other metaphoric relationship. Unlike the real apple, which is removed from its sign, the physical column is simultaneously an object and the sign of the object. It is a more complex reality than the apple. Initially because the column is a sign of itself, it can be considered as an indexical sign in that it receives its motivation from an internal, prior condition—the interiority of its being.º
Unlike the linguistic sign, which acquires a degree of freedom and creativity from the nonidentity of its referential and signifying functions, the architectural sign is constrained by a conflation of reference and signification, by the fact that it is what it signifies. A column or a wall is unavoidably a column or a wall—a material structural element of architecture—at the same time that it is a sign of that structural element within the discursive system of architecture.
This special status of the architectural sign holds an altogether ambivalent status for Eisenman; it is at once the material constraint architecture must struggle against and the condition of its identity as a cultural practice. It is only by bearing this ambivalence in mind that we will be able to grasp the complexity of what emerges as the key term of Eisenman's theory: namely, the "interiority" of architecture. Variously configured at different times during Eisenman's long career, this term accords architecture a kind of internal, though certainly evolving, unity and includes among its most important elements the “targets' of Eisenman's early practice: most notably, the geometric grid and the notion of grounding.
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