it's no more impossible to analyze the text without authorial intent then it is impossible to analyze the building without knowing architect's intent. The building, like the text, stands on its own.

But how would you even begin to analyse a building without understanding its context? The very fact of knowing if it is a church or a house is to be saying something about its creators intent. Right down to the smallest detail of decoration or function, you can only understand it through understanding the historical context that created those traditions and therefore how this individual building deviates from it. That is to know something of intent. For many great buildings we don't even know the architect's name, let alone have a written testimony of what he wanted to achieve, but that doesn't mean his intent doesn't run through every facet of the final construction. To ignore that and try to respond to the building solely as an aesthetic object is not just trivial it is impossible, since the viewer's own aesthetic judgement will itself be formed by many of the same considerations. So if you are going to accept the viewer's or reader's cultural context, why reject the creator's?