Public buildings and the settings in which people work and live significantly influence acceptance of social inequalities, social roles, and definitions of individual competence, merit, and power. Spaces do not convey meanings as if they were simple codes, but rather objectify whatever shared meanings a group of people need to reinforce in one another to rationalize both privileges and disadvantages. It is as if beliefs that are undemonstrable or doubtful have to be objectified in an entity that then confronts people as reality. Each kind of public space evokes a number of different meanings, integrative or divisive, but their concurrence typically reinforces established inequalities. (Author)