This article proposes a symbolic reading of architecture based on the dialectics between stereotomy and tectonics, as articulated in Alberto Campo Baeza’s essay From the Cave to the Hut (2011). Drawing on contributions from authors such as Gottfried Semper, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Kenneth Frampton, Marco Frascari and Gaston Bachelard, it argues that these categories exceed the technical realm and become symbolic structures of dwelling. Through a hermeneutic approach, the expressive value of matter, gravity, structure and light is examined as mediators between body and world. Contemporary practices such as those of Peter Zumthor, Tadao Ando, Álvaro Siza, Glenn Murcutt, Anna Heringer and Peter Eisenman are analysed to illustrate the relevance of this discourse. The article ultimately defends architecture as a symbolic language, situated between telluric permanence and rational projection.