本文企圖揭露建築真有文化實踐（cultural practice）之本質。透過羅蘭．巴特（Roland Barthes）對符號學認知的延伸，建築可視為「非文字性」的「語言正本」，透過其自身「視覺正本」（visual text）中符號體系的展演，表達社會價值內容、傳達文化意義，使成為社會族群文化認同凝聚的想像及投射對象;同時，建築亦展現「視覺政治」（the politics of visuality）的能力，不僅提供建構文化認同的場域，亦成為參與社會價值與意識形態建構的工具。 　　建築的符號亦是意識形態的符號，文化與社會意識訊息鑲嵌在建築形式中，成為一自然化表徵形式，公然運作於社會環境中，可視為一「神話」文本。本文之「後設」解讀（meta-decoding）即是「解神話」（démystification），透過解神話的過程進而超越傳統建築研究對外層形式的關注，檢驗被認為是理所當然的公共建築的形式，揭發公共建築中所隱含的「被自然化」或「去政治化」的神話本質，企圖找出潛伏於其中具「規範性」（nonnalísation）之政治意圖。

　　This essay addresses how architecture functions as a medium of cultural practice. By investigating Roland Barthes's ideas taking semiology into account, this essay considers architecture as a visual, "non-verbal", text that interprets the values . of a society, articulates and delivers cultural meaning through the performance of symbols that constitute the appearance of a building. Moreover, architecture, as an object by which symbolic meanings can be conferred upon individual subjects, and on which one can project one's cultural identity, becomes a site where identity can be shaped and transformed. 　　Architecture is ideological. The symbols of architecture are the symbols of ideology. Architecture and ideology are entangled with each other, and tied to a claim to "naturalness" or "correctness", and therefore manipulate what one' cultural identity is. This essay suggests the importance of "meta-decoding" - a process of demystifying - by which one is able to move away from the structuralist attitude that concerns architectural forms as an agglomeration of substantial elements. This essay infers that architecture is a valid tool that operates in "the politics of visuality", and suggests that public buildings are coupled with a hidden dimension, a political intention. An activity of normalisation is bound to arise as soon as those public buildings perform.