Richard Gilles – HOUSE II

House

What does a house symbolize and what symbolizes a house.

When asked to draw a house a child will most often draw a rectangle with an isosceles triangle on top. After adding a door and a window or two you have the standard drawing of a house. This rudimentary shape has become a universal symbol of a house. With computers this symbol has become simplified even more to become an icon. The “home” icon is used to return the user to the start, to back the user out of complexity and return the user to a place of relative safety.

Safety is what a house symbolizes. A house is a place of refuge, a shelter from the hostile elements. As a house becomes a home the sense of safety is it extended. It becomes more then just physical safety but extends to social and psychological safety.

With this collection of photographs I am exploring the visual meaning of the house shape. To be clear this is not a series about houses but only about that rudimentary shape that is often used to symbolize a house.

Richard Gilles