There are as many metaphorical subtleties in architecture as there are in language, maybe more. The metaphorical power of architecture is inescapable and has many dimensions.

…metaphors in architecture are generally thought of not as treacherous sources of delusion but as (to use an architectural metaphor) cornerstones of creativity.

In a creative activity such as architecture, metaphor is less a threat to objective truth and more (to use another architectural metaphor) an arena of conceptual vitality – an arena being a performance area shareable with others.

In language, metaphors tend to occur in passing; in architecture they are more consequential.

We might think of metaphor as a device belonging to the poetry of words but metaphor can also be non-verbal – visual, spatial, experiential… Metaphor is essential to the poetry of architecture too.

The metaphors of architecture are protean ghosts haunting a many roomed labyrinth. They morph and fuse, subtly mutating perceptions; like distorting glass. When you look more closely you realise that the labyrinth of architectural ideology is ruled by those protean ghosts.

All architecture is, metaphorically, a shadow cast on a cave wall. Architecture is a version of the truth – a version of sense – proposed by the architect and realised in the physical form of buildings and the identification of places for inhabitation.

We develop our architecture through metaphor. In the distant past we looked to those places we recognised and experienced in nature for ideas – the shelter of a cave, the shade of a tree, the original refuge of the womb, our own proud vertical stance and point of view, the communal circle we make with our friends in a forest clearing… – and sought to emulate them in our architecture.

The general argument is that metaphors live at the conceptual core of architecture; but those metaphors are of many and varied kinds, which change and grow as you try to pin them down.