Gadamer realizes an interesting reflection concerning the work of art in case of the

architecture in a paragraph dedicated to "ontological foundation of the occasional and the

decorative" in the first part of his book Truth and method, his basic objective is to
determine the essence of the image.

First thing he does is to make a distinction of images that execute a representative

function, it is important to have present that Gadamer's interest concerns of the essence
of the image and not the problem of the meaning.

Initially he speaks about the role of the original or the model in the cases of the portrait
and the art (where we could include for example the plane of a house or architectural
projects in general)

In this case a portrait represents an aesthetic occasional phenomenon is to say: "the

meaning of his content is determined from the specific occasion of situation where it was
made", so he represents a clear and individual reference to the person or original. 194

Instead, in the case of art, for example in a painting the role of the model or original that
its represents has as function to be a scheme that must disappear in the content of
the picture, this is, the model is not taken by itself but as something "Across it's visualized
something differently", another case of this is the model or plane for a house in
architectural projects that just plays the role of certain support that allows to orientate the
construction. 195

Another point that Gadamer expose it's the distinction between the sacred and profane:

At the images that represents religious or profane monuments, it's not a question of the
representation of an individuality, because they essentially have a public valence, a
monument as a symbol it isn't limited to being a mere trace of the original which it refers,
his representation presupposes or refers to something known for all and which must be
remembered.

The image of a god, the picture of a king, the monument that gets up to someone, imply
that the god, the king, the hero or the event the victory or the agreement of peace possess
already a determinant importance for all. However this one is not the case of art cause it
is no limited to representing a meaning that is presupposed, in this sense it is independent
from the previous knowledge.

Now we must talk about the distinction between sign and image:

An image is not a sign, " a sign is not more than its function demands, he must just design
or point to something. For this it must attracts or call our attention and to show the
referential content as a traffic signal does, for instance the signal of a dangerous curve,
that invite us to be prepared to something different of sign itself. On the contrary, an image
haven't the function to send to another thing.

Now we can make the distinction between sign and symbol

A symbol differs clearly from the sign, similarly to the images, the representative function
of the symbol is not reduce to sending to something absent. On the contrary the symbol
makes appear as present something that in the bottom always is present.
In the antiquity, they called a symbol to the sign of hospitality or belonging to a religious
community, a symbol make precisely manifest or visible what it evokes, the tessera
hospitalis and Stonehenge testify the existence of a life lived in another time.

However a symbol not only sends to something, it assumes his place, replaces it, for this
reason the symbols like the flags or the temples are places of adoration because in then it
becomes immediately present what they represent. On the contrary an image can acquire
its own way of express the meaning, it isn't a simple substitution of a reference.

In this respect the image is to half way between the sign and the symbol, his way of
representing is neither pure reference nor pure substitution, while the signs and the
symbols do not receive his function from its own content, as the image, according with
Gadamer to obteining its function its necessary an original act in which the meaning it's
establishes by a convention, this one is not the case of the image or art which
representative character does not obey a foundation of this type.

So, after this distinction we can talk about the particular case of architecture:

A piece of architectural art sends beyond itself in a double direction, on one hand it must
serve to a certain vital behavior and for the other hand it must to be able to integrate and
contribute something new in the urban space development or landscape.

A building or a monument is never in its origin a work of art, the determination of its
objective can not be separate without it loses its own reality, running the risk of turning
into a simple shade that live under the form degraded of the tourist object.

The reason why the big architectural monuments survives to the past in the life of the
modern traffic and buildings, impose the task of an integration or mediation of before and
now, of the past and the present, without which a piece of art does not possess real
current importance, and this one is a point in which the architecture can show us with
particular clarity, because we can not separate then of his own world.

In the case of Stonehenge, we have lost part of the context that could permit us to
determine accurately its meaning or purpose. Somehow the way of joining the space, the
proportions and its mysterious, has allowed it to survive across the time.