The architectural language of non-architects: the semiotic phenomenon of Okakura Tenshin’s Villa

This article investigates the architectural language of non-architects through a semiotic lens, examining how spatial composition, material reuse, and formal articulation generate meaning beyond conventional frameworks. Drawing parallels between linguistic and architectural systems, it foregrounds their respective symbolic structures and communicative roles. The study focuses on Okakura Tenshin’s self-designed villa – a Meiji-era retreat that counters Tokyo’s Westernised art institutions – analysing its spatial circulation, landscape integration, and resistance to normative design codes. These strategies are interpreted as constituting an autonomous symbolic system that materially encodes acts of cultural dissent and reinterpretation. Positioned on the margins of disciplinary discourse, such non-professional works expose architecture’s potential as a medium of symbolic and ideological expression. By departing from standardised formalism, they prompt a reconsideration of architecture as a pluralistic and culturally embedded practice. The article argues for a critical re-evaluation of professional authorship, suggesting that alternative modes of spatial production can enrich the conceptual terrain of architecture. In this light, the self-authored residence emerges not only as a site of personal retreat, but as a discursive artefact that challenges dominant narratives of architectural authorship and practice.