When all these elements are freed from their respective functional meaning and collected as mere forms,they may be called morphemes. I wanted to adopt the concept of morphemes as a tool for articulating a field detached from functional and rational meanings, no more that suspended units of form unaccompanied by any kind of emotion. If the operation of arranging morphemes may inscribe rhythm and dynamism into a space, then the conventional planning methods of spatial division or connection may be transposed into this entirely different operation of arranging morphemes. like notating a graphic score in contemporary music, perhaps this operation is the act of distributing neutral symbols. I have only now begun to pursue this new concept, and I cannot yet give it a systematic description. This is the challenge of discovering new morphemes themselves, followed by the task of arranging them and identifying their integrated structure. The process of identifying these structures is perhaps related to the old theme of urban semiotics.
- Toyo Ito, Tarzans in the media forest, p.36
