Institution
Money
Explore in the Atlas →Searle's paradigm institutional fact: a piece of paper or a token 'counts as' money only by collective acceptance of a status function, not by any physical property. As an instituted imaginary, money is a shared fiction with binding force that organises exchange, value and credit. Its architecture — banks, mints, exchanges, treasuries — monumentalises trust and turns an abstract convention into solid, guarded built form.
Exchange Sign Power
Details
- Origin
- multiple (Lydia, China, Mesopotamia)
- Register
- Instituted
Classifications
- Holder
- Communal intergenerational
- Source of authority
- Reason
- Subject
- Human centred
- Political position
- Hegemonic
- Degree of codification
- Highly codified
- Mode of transmission
- Text drawing
- Knowledge type
- Propositional
- Epistemic cluster
- Western philosophical
Referenced by
- The Social Imaginary institutes
- John Searle articulates
Sources
- n.d..
- n.d..
Cite this entry
First published May 2026Last revised Jul 2026
CLAD. "Money." Atlas of Architectural Thought. CLAD, 2026. https://www.cl-ad.com.au/research/atlas/institution/money/. Accessed July 17, 2026.