Thinking, drawing and writing architecture through metaphor

Metaphor is a critical component of being an architect: it mediates the various stages involved in architectural design, motivates a large part of the jargon used in the discipline, and is consistently used as a rhetorical strategy in many of the genres articulating architectural communication. Given its importance in architectural practice and discourse, the teaching of metaphor should be included in the syllabi of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses taught at polytechnic schools. The purpose of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, I describe how various metaphors inform architects’ practice – from the first design phase to the post-construction assessment distributed in one of the most popular genres in the community; that is, the architectural review. Drawing insights from cognitive and genre research into the role of metaphor in the discipline, I then suggest ways in which metaphorical competence can be fostered in ESP courses aiming at facilitating the students’ gradual enculturation process into their future community of practice