Hermeneutic-semiotic approach to architectural research (poetics of architecture) and the study of cultural phenomena of antiquity as a system of architectural organization of forms of the material world from the point of view of the relationship of human life with its spatial design, reflected in the architectural form and text about this form (poetics of ancient architecture). An idio-nomographic method of architectural studies has been proposed and substantiated. The socio-cultural foundations of the architectural (and not historical and cultural) process in the ancient world have been identified, their relationship with the formation of the architectural form has been traced.