Geoffrey Broadbent (11 June 1929 – 2020) was an English architect, academic and professor emeritus, and a prolific author in architectural theory, especially semiotics.
His interests, however, lay more in academia;[1] he was a lecturer in architecture at the University of Manchester in 1959-1961; lecturer at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies (IAAS) at the University of York in 1961-1962; and lecturer at the University of Sheffield in 1963-1967, before being made head of the School Architecture at Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1967, a position he held until 1994, when he became professor emeritus.
Following his death, Broadbent bequeathed his vast personal library to the Portsmouth School of Architecture.
He posited four major phases in design activity; pragmatic, iconic, analogic and canonic.
Reviewing the book in 1980, Bryan Lawson called it "essential reading for those interested in a kind of environmental design where, above all, people matter.