An architecture must be developed that understands its inherent capabilities and limitations to communicate to its public audience through architectural connotation--architecture that is conscious of its implicit meaning--such is the goal of this thesis. Semiotics, visual art, and architecture (theoretical and built) provide a framework that permit an analysis of architectural connotation. Semiotic terminology including, sign, denotation and connotation, are translated to architecturally relevant terms. Works from the visual arts and architecture serve as examples of how connotation applied to the consumption of buildings and art. Architectural theory provides a basis for a definition of architecture and building that establishes the body as the 'site of reception' of architecture. In turn buildings are examined as a series of 'architectural objects': situation, surface, massing, space, program, event, and body. It is through a methodical re-composition of these elements into critical relationships that permits the production of architectural connotation--in theoretical and built contexts. These theoretical propositions are then explored in a series of visual experiments. Through collage and computer animation the architectural objects and their relevance to communication are further clarified. In conjunction with these experiments a point form text entitled the connotation cookbook is developed as a portable theoretical precis of the investigation. The primary intention of the cookbook is to provide a resource for the production of architecture that is interested in communicating to a diverse multi-cultural society. The ideas presented in the visual experiments and the connotation cookbook are then implemented in the design of a 15 story tall, 1 block large, multiple program building entitled the Offidential-Restactory. This investigation provides a comprehensive examination of how architecture is capable of communicating and carries it through from theory to building. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)