Introduction

HistoriesandTheoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

Mark Garcia
Since the mid-20th century, the diagram has taken first place among the
techniques and procedures of architectural knowledge, usurping the place of the
drawing ... the diagram has gained amazing prominence as a leading term in
theoretical discourse.
Gerrit Confurius, Daidalos, vol 74, 2000

Diagramming is indeed the most important innovation in architecture of the last

10 to 15 years.
Lars Spuybroek, The Architecture of Continuity, 2008

Definitions of the Diagrams of Architecture

A diagram is the spatialisation of a selective abstraction and/or reduction of a concept
or phenomenon. In other words, a diagram is the architecture of an idea or entity. Much
effort has been spent (particularly since the mid-1980s) in research into the supposed
'powers' and potentials of the architectural diagram, which have been theorised in a
succession of short texts, magazines and a small handful of books. Strong claims have
repeatedly been made for the ameliorating and emancipating effects of diagrams, and
recent architectural theory and practice in this field continues. Today diagrams are
valuable and used in seemingly every aspect of architecture. It is surprising then to find
that, considering their centrality and ubiquity, there are not more books, more criticism
and a more integrated body of research into the link between diagrams, architecture and
other related forms of spatial design. While there is a flood of exceptional design (built,
unbuilt and unbuildable) and many interesting theoretical contributions to the field,
there are some major omissions, biases and undetected problems. It therefore seems
timely to revise and readdressthis ancient field in the light of recent developments since
the late 20th century, to raise some new questions and to introduce some new
contributions, ideas and designs into the historical, contemporary and futurological
discourses on the architectural diagram.

Diagrams in architecture are as old as architecture itself. Some of the earliest prehistoric
1
artefacts: Stonehenge in England, the diagram of the town of Konya in Turkey, dated to
around 6200 BC, and ancient Amerindian petroglyph diagrams carved into rock, are
2
diagrams of space and place. Even a cursory glance through Michael Friendly's historical
and visual survey of diagrams and visualisations indicates that this is a complex field that
overlaps various paradigms of knowledge and enquiry. This has resulted in diverse
definitions of the diagram and, consequently, very different conceptualisations of its
properties, function and use. These differences are also apparent in the way diagrams are

18 The Diagramsof Architecture

 Rock diagram, artist and date unknown. This petroglyph is a diagram of the relations
between the local land and its animal and human inhabitants. Associated with Nez
Perce ancient Native American Indians, c 2500 BC. © Courtesy of the Bureau of Land
Management, Snake River District. Idaho, USA. Photo Barry Rose, 1991.

described and valued in relation to architecture and spatial design, and with respect to
questions of validity, truth status, their ontological standing as both process and objects,
and as mental and material phenomena. Much new research is being undertaken into
how the design of diagrams relates to their value and utility as philosophical, practical
3
and aesthetic phenomena. As Alan Blackwell and Yuri Engelhardt's ~AMeta-Taxonomy for
4
Diagram Research' indicates, the field is a fragmented mix of disciplines, schools of
thought and often disjointed research projects. It also suggests many of the ways in
which architecture and spatial design have, will and could engage with this important
field of multidisciplinary visual and spatial practice and knowledge. Before examining the
present or speculating on the future, it is worth considering the specific history of
diagrams in architecture.

The design and use of diagrams in architectural texts and treatises was a display of
authority and qualification to design, build and/or theorise architecture. Diagrams
demonstrated that an architect or writer had the necessary skills and knowledge.
Diagrams related to architecture, and to other subjects relating to architecture, were
therefore a staple of many architectural treatises as far back as Vitruvius, whose De
Architecturo,or ~Ten Books on Architecture' (c 25 sc), included 9 or 10 accompanying
5
images that (in most cases) were basic geometric diagrams. Vitruvius's text touches on
topics in which diagrams are important. These include: astronomy, astrology, geology,
physics, anatomy, hydrology, optics, perspective, entarsis, colour, music, acoustics,
mathematics, painting, sculpture, geometry, meteorology, engineering, mechanics,
armaments and ballistics. Since Vitruvius, the history of the education of the architect
(both in and outside the Western tradition), has at different moments up to the present
included at least some knowledge of (among other subjects) theology and scripture,
mathematics, geometry, philosophy and politics, and later the principles and practices
of the arts (drawing, painting, sculpture) . Skill and knowledge in these subjects

19 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 The Diagram
1921 Kandinsky 1897 Peirce
1967 Bertin 1963 Werner & Kaplan
1968 Bowman 1966 Kno.vtton
<) 1969 Arnheim
1976
1987
1994
1995
Stewart
Saint-Martin
Roth et al .
Newsham
graph c
primitive Qe O graphic
properties
1984
1985
1986
Richards
Sampson
Owen
1987 Larkin & Simon
1999 Card et al.
1. Basic Graphic Vocabulary 1997 Tversky
1963 Werner & Kaplan 1999 Elkins

~ d
1965 Krampen 5. Mode of Correspondence
1978 Barnard & Marcel
1979 Twyman
1980 Doblin
1985 Sampson word shape picture
1989 Winn
1993 van der Waarde 2. Conve ntional Elements 6. The
1996 lttelson Represented
1997 Strothotte Information
1999 Horn

1968 Bowman
1969Arnhe im

-------------
1984 Richards

------
1964 Harrison
1966 Knowlton
1967 Bertin
1976 Stewart •
L~
metric axes i\\i
1923 Karsten
1967 Bert,n
1968 Bowman
1979 Twyman 1977 Macdonald-Ross
1981 Hardin g.. 1979 Garland
segmentation literal analogic / arbitrary
1984 Richards ~ 1980 Doblin
metaphoric
1986 Mackinlay % 1981 Hardin
1989 Winn
1990 Rankin
1994 Roth et al.
containment
'c.
~------------- 1986 Mackinlay
1986 Owen
1989 Wurman
1990 Rankin
1996 Engelhardt
1999 Card et al . 1990 Roth & Mattis
1999 Elkins 1990 Wehrend & Lewis
1999 Horn connect on 1991 Nyerges
1991 Wexelblat
1992 Bennett & Flach
4. Graphic Structure 1995 MacEachren
1996 Cheng
1997 Tversky
1999 Card et al.

(particularly since the Renaissance) signalled the architect or architectural theorist's

abilities in, and/ or comprehension of, classical designo and decorum, reason and order .
Some of the diagrams from other disciplines and domains were inevitably transferred
into architectural designs, built works, theories and texts . However, due to their
perishable and sometimes (deliberately) esoteric, exclusive , inscrutable nature, many of
the diagrams created in architectural contexts have not survived, defy interpretation or
though intended and operating as such, do not appear to be diagrams .

Leaving aside some important diagrammatic histories of other disciplines related to ancient
and classical architecture, it was, remarkably, only in the 20th century that significant texts
of architecture theory on the specific subject of the diagram appeared . OnJy in the 1980s
6
and 1990s did full - scale books emerge with the architectural diagram as their main subject
or the word 'diagram' in their title . Even Le Corbusier's chapter 'Truth From Diagrams' in
La Ville Radieuse(1933) included only basic diagrams related to geoplanetary solar paths
and urban zoning . Though many of the diagrams included in his book address the various
patterns and dimensions of the space and life cycles of humans, (labour, leisure, politics,
technology, transport, agricultural regions and environment etc), Le Corbusier wastes few
words on the topic of diagrams in architecture itself, though he himself was a prolific ,
significant and original diagram architect and designer. It was only in 2005 that the first
book devoted to the diagrammatic presentation of architectural precedents (admittedly of

20 The Diagramsof Architecture

 1969 Dale
1987 Larkin & Simon
1989W1nn
1992 Bennett & Flach Mental
1995 Cox & Brna
Representati on
1995 Butlimore et . al
1996 Scaife & Rogers
1997 Blackwell
1997 Zhang
1999 Card et al.

8. Cognitive
Processes
9. Socia l Context

The 0 0
Conventi on

1980 Dobl1n left and opposite: Alan Blackwell

1986 Wood & Fels
19961ttelson and Yuri Engelhardt, diagrams
1996 Kress & van Leeuwen
1985 Martin & McClure
1997 Tversky of a meta-taxonomy of diagram
........
........ 1989
1993
Winn
Price et. al .
taxonomies and of diagrams
··- 1996
1996
Chuah & Roth
Green & Pe1re
research. From the chapter 'A
1998 Green & Blackwell
1997 Tweedie Meta-Taxonomy for Diagrams
1998 Marriott& Meyer
1999 Card et al.
Research' M Anderson, M
The Meyer, P Olivier (eds) ,
The
Diagram Diagrammatic Representation
Represen ted
Information and Reasoningl Springer, 2001.
Mode of
Correspondence With kind permission of Springer
Science-Business Media.

a highly selective geographical and historical range) emerged . Titled Precedents in

Architecture : Analytic Diagrams, Formative Ideas and Partis (Roger H Clark and Michael
Pause, Wiley, New Jersey, 2005), the book retrospectively rediagrams a catalogue of
architectural specimens to produce a visual comparat ive analysis of case studies in the
history of architecture. It is organised through the use of a Durand-like template of
different diagram types, each of which focuses on distinct aspects of a building; each
template is then applied to 31 diverse exemplars of built , supposedly canonical works of
architecture . With separate diagrams each template treats: site plans, sections, elevations,
structure, natural light , massing, geometry, parti , plan in relation to section, circulation to
use, unit to whole relations, repetition in relation to unique parts, unit in relation to whole,
additive and subtractive elements, symmetry and balance, and hierarchies. Though limited
to the 20th century, it was only in 2006 that Borja Ferrater and OAB published their
Synchronising Geometry : Landscape Architecture and Construction / Ideographic Resources
(Actar, Barcelona), the first extensive historical analysis of the development of geometry in
architectural structural systems through the diagram.

In interior, landscape and urban design and planning, the construction of histories and
theorisations of the diagram is also problematic. Historical and theoretical diagram
research in these discipl ines is fragmented; it is not addressed by any wide-ranging
historical or geographical publication or project but exists as small, narrowly focused

21 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 The Diagram
1921 Kandinsky 1897 Peirce
1967 Bertin 1963 Werner & Kaplan
1968 Bowman 1966 Knowlton
<(> O 1969 Arnheim
1976
1987
1994
1995
Stewart
Saint-Martin
Roth et al.
Newsham
graphic
primitives Q- graphic
properties
1984
1985
1986
Richards
Sampson
Owen
1999 Card et al. 1987 Larkin & Simon
1. Basic Graphic Vocabulary 1997 Tversky
1963 Werner & Kaplan 1999 Elkins

~ d
1965 Krampen 5. Mode of Correspondence
1978 Barnard & Marcel
1979 Twyman
1980 Doblin
1985 Sampson word shape picture
1989 Winn
1993 van der Waarde 2. Conventional Elements 6. The
1996 lttelson Represented
1997 Strothotte Information
1999 Horn

1968 Bowman
1969 Arnheim
1984 Richards

------ -------------
1964 Harrison
1966 Knowlton
1967 Bertin
1976 Stewart
•
L~
metric axes \\
1923 Karsten
1967 Bertin
1968 Bowman
1979Twyman 1977 Macdonald-Ross
1981 Hardin literal analogic I arbitrary 1979 Garland
1984 Richards segmentation 1980 Dobhn
metaphoric
1986 Mackinlay 1981 Hardin
1989 Winn 1986 Mackinlay
1990 Rankin 1986 Owen
1994 Roth et al. 1989 Wurman
containment
1996 Engelhardt 1990 Rankin
1999 Card et al. 1990 Roth & Mattis
1999 Elkins 1990 Wehrend & Lewis
1999 Horn connection 1991 Nyerges
1991 Wexelblat
1992 Bennett & Flach
4. Graphic Structure 1995 MacEachren
1996 Cheng
1997 Tversky
1999 Card et al.

(particularly since the Renaissance) signalled the architect or architectural theorist's

abilities in, and/or comprehension of, classical designo and decorum, reason and order.
Some of the diagrams from other disciplines and domains were inevitably transferred
into architectural designs, built works, theories and texts. However, due to their
perishable and sometimes (deliberately) esoteric, exclusive, inscrutable nature, many of
the diagrams created in architectural contexts have not survived, defy interpretation or
though intended and operating as such, do not appear to be diagrams.

Leaving aside some important diagrammatic histories of other disciplines related to ancient
and classical architecture, it was, remarkably, only in the 20th century that significant texts
of architecture theory on the specific subject of the diagram appeared. Only in the 1980s
6
and 1990s did full-scale books emerge with the architectural diagram as their main subject
or the word 'diagram' in their title. Even Le Corbusier's chapter 'Truth From Diagrams' in
La Ville Radieuse(1933) included only basic diagrams related to geoplanetary solar paths
and urban zoning . Though many of the diagrams included in his book address the various
patterns and dimensions of the space and life cycles of humans, (labour, leisure, politics,
technology, transport, agricultural regions and environment etc), Le Corbusier wastes few
words on the topic of diagrams in architecture itself, though he himself was a prolific,
significant and original diagram architect and designer. It was only in 2005 that the first
book devoted to the diagrammatic presentation of architectural precedents (admittedly of

20 The Diagramsof Architecture

 7
essays in obscure journals. Some texts, such as David Grahame Shane's Recombinant
8
Urbanism (2005), engage the histories and theories of diagrams in architecture and
related spatial disciplines tangentially, implicitly and through the helpful reproduction of
9
visual surveys of the diagrams themselves. Others do so, with mixed results, within
limited ranges of focus (such as geographic, historical, paradigmatic or disciplinary, or by
10 11
diagram subtype, etc) and within the size constraints of the magazine format. While
cartography represents a relatively more substantial and historically continuous body of
12
textual research, the map is not necessarily identical to the diagram (though Michel
13 14
Foucault, Bart Lootsma and Gilles Deleuze at times argue that in some cases it is).
Part of the problem is that the discrete, proprietary categories and concepts of interior,
urban and landscape design / planning (as well as "design' itself) are historically and
geographically contingent types of professions, disciplines and domains of practice and
15
theory. For Joachim Krauss, the lack of a balanced and continuous written history of
the diagram in spatial design is due to "certain hierarchies perpetuated in the form of
articulations of knowledge that privilege the written text over sets of figures, and the
16
latter over visualisations, diagrams, maps and models'. Another aspect of this problem
is that many of the most significant critical contributions to the field are distributed and
fragmented across publications and magazines, and are in larger books and obscurely
embedded in texts on other subjects. So while the concepts and uses of the diagram are
fundamental to the continuous histories and theories of architecture, their detailed
visual, international, historical and multidisciplinary theorisation remains incomplete.

An important problem facing any historical and theoretical project related to diagrams in
architecture is the definition of "diagram' itself. The word and the concept of the diagram
have evolved in a variety of different disciplinary, professional and functional
17
contexts, complicating its understanding. The etymology of "diagram' is not particularly
18
helpful to a comprehension of its present, multifaceted manifestations in architecture.
The sources vary slightly, but the word is derived from the Latin diagramma and Greek
diagramma; these mean variously that which is marked, figured, traced, symbolised,
written or drawn out. It comes from the Greek dia- meaning 'across, out or between-two'
and gramma meaning 'figure, mark or line that is made'. This abstract, general and
ambiguous definition has been extended, by various writers, to the point where at present
the diagram overlaps with such diverse entities as the sketch, chart, symbol, icon, table,
19
silhouette, cartoon, template, outline, notation, parti, typology / type, schema, format,
archetype, logo, brand, emblem, motif, allegory, index, impression, pictogram, ideogram,
graph and doodle. Even in architecture and other spatial design disciplines, there is little
consensus on any more precise way to define and distinguish, in all cases, the diagram
20
from larger related things such as the drawing, sketch, illustration, visualisation, model,
map, process and metaphor. These overlapping, liminal synonyms test and stretch the
limits of the diagram as it is evolving in architecture and indicate the complexity and
confusion of the conceptualisations, operations, uses, theorisations, experiences, values
and meanings of the diagram in today's architecture and spatial design.

22 The Diagramsof Architecture

 Peter Eisenman, diagram model for Berlin Hotel , Friedrichstrasse, 1998. To
generate this 3-D diagram Eisenman used Mies 's diagram of his 1922 Glass
Skyscraper project for Berlin. This was then intersected/reflected /rotated into three
dimensions along its axes . Fonds Peter Eisenman, Collection Centre Canadien
d 'Architecture /Canadian Centre for Architecture , Montreal. © CCA.

The problem with such a broad definition is that it dilutes the meaning of the term to the
extent where it begins to decompose and collapse into even more general and unhelpfully
vague concepts such as form, system, schema, space, structure, simulation, process,
pattern, suggestion, analogy, influence and inspiration. The relatively recent theoretical
articulation of the diagram in architecture is evident also in the chronological distribution
of texts addressing the diagram in architecture. Though many of the precursors of the
extant theorisations of the diagram in the spatial design disciplines emerged from related
21
research in other fields such as the sciences, arts, philosophy, mathematics and
engineering, and more recently computing, cybernetics and artificial intelligence (among
others), it was only in the 20th century that the architectural diagram was explicitly
theorised in a single publication devoted exclusively to the subject.

Most of the definitions of the diagram in architectural and other spatial design theories
draw on the works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), Michel Foucault (1926-84),
and Gilles Deleuze (1925-95) with Felix Guattari (1930-92). Foucault's critical theorising
of architectural diagrams (through the example of the Panopticon) is still the canonical
articulation of the social, political, cultural, economic and psychological mechanisms and
effects of the design of spatial diagrams. His concept of the architectural diagram was
influential on Deleuze and Guattari's work in this field, which remains the most influential
and enduring basis for almost all theorising on the diagram in architecture and spatial
22
design. Across a number of texts, including Deleuze's Foucault (1998) and co-authored
23
with Guattari, in particular, A Thousand Plateaus (1988) Deleuze articulates at least
three different concepts and definitions of the diagram (influenced respectively by

23 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

Francis Bacon, Marcel Proust and Michel Foucault). It has been his concept of the
diagram as 'abstract machine . . . a map of relations between forces' that has been most
influential in the spatial design disciplines . While other definitions and concepts of the
24
Deleuzian diagram (related to Deleuze's study of the paintings of Francis Bacon) are
also used, it is the concept associated with Deleuze's writings on Foucault that has been
most influential.

25
Silvio Cassara's Peter Eisenman: Feints (2006) contains an essay by Anthony Vidler
26
titled 'What is a Diagram Anyway' in which Vidler offers a technical and academic
analysis of this question. Beginning by stating a dictionary definition of 'diagram ' , Vidler
ultimately finds it inadequate in its focus on the figurative, line-based qualities of marks
and tracings used in diagrams . Instead he extends the definition by adding that 'it is the
function of these traces that is important . . . [the diagram] illustrates a definition , aids in
the proof of a proposition, it represents the course of results of any action or process' .
Vidler's definitions are derived from Peirce's and Deleuze's notion of the diagram as an
'icon of relationships ' which specifies, in a part icular way, 'the relations between
unformed / unorganised matter and unformalised / unfinalised functions '. Vidler seems to
accept Deleuze's notion of the diagram as a spatiotemporal abstract map/ machine and
' multiplicity' which 'refuses every formal distinction between a content and an
expression'. Further, he distingu ishes the ways in which diagrams differ from drawings ,
namely that diagrams represent abstractions 'symbolically' .

Peirce's, Foucault 's and Deleuze and Guattari 's definitions of the diagram are still central
to modern architectural and design - based discourses on the diagram . Among those
modern architects for whom , in their development, these definitions have been a crucial
and radical tool we can include Rem Koolhaas/ OMA, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Lars
Spuybroek, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, Foreign Office Architects, UNStudio,
Philippe Rahm, Reiser + Umemoto and MVRDV. But each of these architects (whether
through design, lectures and interviews or texts), and almost every new text in this field,
offers a slightly different version of what a diagram is and how it could be used in
27
architecture. For some, like Pia Ednie-Brown and RE Somol this seems to have resulted
in a ' confused ' discourse on the diagram . For Ednie- Brown this comes as no surprise for
'we are witnessing as much of a transformation of the notion of the "diagram " itself as
28
we are eliciting some transformation of architectural practice via diagramming '.

The diagram has now infiltrated almost every aspect of architectural theory : descriptive,
explanatory, normative, interpretive, prescriptive, projective and predictive . It has been
defined both as an end in itself (as art) and instrumentally or teleologically through its
aims, purposes, uses and functions . It has been defined as the outcome of automatic
29 30
methods and the intentions, accidents and operations of its maker/ s and users
(though 'user' is an inadequate word for many reasons), the kinds of phenomena it deals
with and/ or refers to (space and time, etc), and through theories about its ontolog ical

24 The Diagramsof Architecture

 \ I

Zaha Haclid, Zollhof 3 Media Park , Dusseldorf, 1989-93.

Freehand diagrams.© Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects .

and metaphysical status. The diagram itself has been variously described as process,
product, pattern, object, structure, visualisation, spatialisation, concept, idea, event,
flow, detail, primary generator, recording, intuition, tool, trace, proposition, solution,
conclusion, agent / agency, occasion, formula, heuristic, mnemonic, interface, vehic le,
vessel, potential and force. Metaphysically and ontologically it has been described as
both real and ideal, objective and subjective, reductive and generative, type and token,
emancipatory and oppressive, destructive and ameliorative, social and inhuman, personal
31
and impersonal, material and immaterial, form and formless. It has also been defined
through its method of creation, as the natural product or partner of the imagination and
32
intuition, and incidentally or accidentally as a side effect or waste product of the design
process. Epistemologically, diagrams have been recommended as useful ways of
engaging and researching almost every different kind of architectural type of truth,
thinking and reasoning, for skill - and experience - building and for the cognitive pursuit
of a variety of aesthetic, ethical, scientific, theoretical and practical modes of
architectural enquiry and knowledge.

Some Problems, Criticisms and Gaps in Architectural Diagrams Research

The plethora and proliferation of theories about the architectural diagram has raised
some interesting new criticisms of the field, and has opened up a number of conspicuous
gaps. Part of the problem with the current state of diagrams has to do with how they
have been understood historically and their propensity to resist certain forms of
interpretation.

33
They can be so perceptually, subjectively and contextually contingent and specific as to
render them ephemeral and interpretively intractable, except for brief periods, even to
their makers. Diagrams (like process-based and conceptual works of art and architecture)
can be highly obscure, esoteric and personal, and made, used and experienced in such
uncertain mental states, contexts and conditions that they can be considered, in Umberto
34
Eco's sense, polyguous, "open works' of sorts.

25 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 .I
-
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Cedric Price! diagram and sketch for Generator, White Oak,

F101ida, 1976-9. Fonds Cedric Price, Collection Centre Canadien
d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. © CCA.

Though they are often fundamental to works of architecture, diagrams can remain
35
latent, hidden and even deliberately disguised or decorated, making it difficult to
decipher and interpret them, and appreciate their effects and functions in architecture .
Occasionally, as with an indexical type of diagram, they can be epiphenomena! and
made (sometimes under automatist and generative conditions whereby the author or
authorship is diffused) outside the full control, intention or understanding of the maker.

The classical theorisation of architectural and art-historical drawings through traditional

Western, object-based (as opposed to process-based and conceptual art) aesthetic
discourses interpreted, valued and raised the drawing above the diagram , ignoring the
latter's possible artful or aesthetic possibilities . The diagram was framed as a primitive
'sketch' or trivial ' process' - related artefact, a kind of proto- or ersatz drawing . But this
is to confuse the sketch-drawing with the sketch-diagram . The sketch-diagram, unlike
the sketch-drawing does not have to be construed primarily in relation to the arts or to
the drawing and the model. It can be described with its own history and in relation to
subjects and domains that extend beyond arts-based traditions, conventions of the
36
media and modes of design.

26 The Diagramsof Architecture

 I
I
\

-
,,, ' ,,,
I
'' ' ,.,,.,
- -1
l (II
I ' ( 11 t t• • · r---- -

Venturi, Rauch , Scott Brown, Franklin Square Robert Venturi, 'I am a monument' , 1979.
in Philadelphia , 1972-6 . Venturi placed the Venturi 's diagram of a monument in
exhibition rooms of this memorial Leaming from Las Vegas. © Courtesy
underground , and he marked the location of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates .
Franklin 's house with a steel diagram of the
house above them. © Courtesy Venturi , Scott
Brown and Associates . Photo Mark Cohn .

Diagrams, because they are not necessarily naturalistic and often remain latent or
invisible and ideational in a work, were relegated in status in respect to the perspective
drawing or the scale model. While drawings and/or models were the default media and
modes of architectural design, diagrams were ascribed a secondary status. However, their
use conferred an intellectual and expert authority on a writer or architect, not only
because diagrams are a topos of pedagogic, scholarly and academic texts, but also
because they were professionally valuable. This was partly because of their
methodological uses in generating complex designs, partly for their uses in the effective
and efficient construction of buildings and the management of the building process, and
also because of their ability to refer to mystico-religious ideas. Some architectural
diagrams were developed and used in the design and making process and disseminated
through pattern books, few of which (particularly from before the 16th century) survive.
Many perished or were discarded after being used in architectural studios and workshops
and on construction sites. Architectural drawing and measuring instruments (such as
proportional dividers, used at least as far back as Roman times) were used to ensure that
a specific diagram (for example, of a particular classical order or the golden section) was
maintained mechanically and consistently in an automatic fashion. Simplistic arguments
in the discourse of the role of drawing, in the redirection of architecture towards the arts,
are more complex and more closely related to the diagram than previous accounts
suggest. These privilege the arts and the drawing, and do not give due attention and
importance to the critical role of the diagram in contexts and discourses other than the
historically dominant ones of art, aesthetics and the drawing in the evolutionary history
of architecture. The different media and modes of architectural design have independent
histories and evolve for reasons internal to their own developmental trajectories. But they
also co-evolve with each other. It was partly because the drawing (after the discovery of

27 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 Albrecht Durer , 1538. Woodcut of a man using a perspective
diagram apparatus on a woman in an interior. From Durer 's
Underweysung der Messung, Nuremberg . © Bettman Corbis .

ST~V~ N5
A
('

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , 1940-1 .

Freehand geometric study diagrams
for students. Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/Canadian
Centre for Architecture, Montreal.
© CCA/Lohan Associates .
Peter Eisenman , 2005. Diagrams of
exploded axonometric of Palazzo
Chiericati by Andrea Palladio .
Reproduced by permission of Peter
Eisenman.© Eisenman Architects.

28 The Diagramsof Architecture

 933 946

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941 943 953 955

bridge tower streetsettling pixel pitch locked circle hatched tower

Francois Blanciak, 2008. Freehand diagrams of architectures. Part of a

series of 1.001 diagrams of siteless building forms . © Francois
Blanciak, SITELESS: 1001 BUILDING FORMS and The MIT Press.

linear perspective in the Renaissance) was able to produce the mimet ic, naturalistic,
realistic and seemingly scientific reproduction and control of architectural space that it
was privileged in relation to the diagram. But linear perspective is just one form of
projection, and because any projection (or projection system) is defined by a diagram as
a type of diagram, it is clear that a history or theory of architecture that does not consider
the role of the diagram is inadequate and incomplete. Some theories and histories of
architecture privilege, sublimate and position the drawing in binary, hierarchical
opposition to the diagram without considering the ways in which they interact, and can
do so indistinguishably, as parts of more general categories of images, visualisations,
media and communications artefacts and systems. Frequently, drawings are discussed
without awareness of their position within these larger, more fundamental categories or
of diagrammatic histories, theories and properties or of the diagrammatic practices and
intentions behind their conception, production, function / effect, reading / misreading,
use/ misuse. This is partly a relic of historical positioning dating from the Renaissance
campaign to shift architecture from the status of a mechanical art to that of a liberal one
37
(Anthony Blunt dates this shift to approximately 1500), away from the crafts , sciences,
engineering, geometry and mathematics of the architecture of the time and towards the

29 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 F~RS
OEJEPJ,tJNEl)B'(
SfflSTOt
L

r PROf™LS
RESUU!
NG
,
INIll[ Pl.AH~
't.GAN
OI
(F 00t
OESC,11

6 9
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u:

32 31

TOTAL
OE$NEIDENTS
(F OCH
IBlUTYSTI.Uf
F'EAS

Cedric Price, network diagram for Generator , White Oak, Florida, 1976-9 .
Fonds Cedric Price, Collection Centre Canadien d'Architecture/Canadian
Centre for Architecture , Montreal. © CCA.

arts of sculpture, painting and literature. Now clearly anachronistic in the light of the
blurring of lines between the mechanical and liberal arts by the digital revolution and
integrated CAD/CAM systems, the distinction nonetheless lives on in the privileging of
the drawing and certain kinds of models and media above the diagram 1n some
contemporary theories, schools, and architectural paradigms and positionings.

The diagram has infiltrated the separate discourses of architecture's other modes and
media (the diagramatisation/diagramatics of the drawing, model, animation, installation ,
text, etc) with the hybridising insertions into them of diagrammatic methods,
38 39
methodologies , practices and techniques, as well as forms, structures and processes.
Partly a result of the digital revolution, the present diagrammatic revolution is also a
revolution in the media and projection systems of architecture. A contemporary ,
multidisciplinary and integrated history and theory of architecture, and any vision of the
future of architecture, would therefore need to consider the linkages between , and shifts
in, the media, technologies, projection systems and diagrams of architecture.

A major gap in the discourse of the architectural diagram, then , is a more continuous
and extensive history , theory and future of architecture, through the diagram. Such a
new and more extensive history and theorisation would not necessarily dispense with

30 The Diagramsof Architecture

architecture's other modes and media, such as the model or drawing, etc (though this
would be interesting), but would articulate these and their roles in architecture in
relation to the diagram.

Diagrams and the increasingly diagrammatic nature of architecture are disturbing for
some partly because they seem to erode the hierarchical dominance and pre-eminence
of architecture's other classical modes and media. It is still a heresy in many schools of
architecture and professional accreditation bodies, and for many architects and
architecture theorists, to claim (depending on precisely how diagrams and architecture
are defined) that diagrams can be considered sufficient and necessary conditions for
architecture. This is a more radical claim than that made by Gerrit Confurius at the turn
of the millennium, that the diagram has now 'usurped' the place of the drawing. And
though Robert Somol writes that Eisenman and Koolhaas use diagrams in complementary
40
attempts to ' eschew design' and 'supplant design with the diagram', no one has yet
been so revolutionary as to explicitly propose (though many, like Koolhaas and Eisenman
come close to delivering) the possibility of an entirely diagrammatic studio, office,
research centre or professional qualification.

There is no museum of the diagram and there has never been a major international
exhibition on the architectural diagram (or diagrams in general) to address these
41 42
gaps. Aside from a collection of magazines, the other notable treatments on
diagrams per se in various (architectural and non-architectural) journals, edited
collections of essays and monographs are fragmentary and limited in scope or depth.
They tend to be about the work of a single architect, a narrow range of architectural
positions and (as described elsewhere in this essay) have a number of other minor

--v
I 1
') I I I
I I

Peter Eisenman , diagrammatic model for Emory Center for the Arts , Emory
University, Georgia , 1991 Fonds Peter Eisenman, Collection Centre Canadien
d 'Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal.© CCA.

31 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 I
•

' ~
' ),..-

... I
.. .

I
f

'
I I1
Peter Eisemnan, diagrammatic model for the Virtual House competition,
Berlin, 1997. Fonds Peter Eisemnan, Collection Centre Canadien
d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. © CCA.

32 The Diagrams
of Architecture
limitations . The most serious om1ss1ons, biases and gaps in existing writings that
critique and reinterpret architectural diagrams, or texts about them, tend to replicate
the confused, fragmented field of diagram research overall. They suffer from historical
myopia and inattention to the futurological trajectories of diagram research in other
fields . Because of the evolving and expanding definitions and research into the various
mutations and adaptations of the diagram in other (often highly specific) domains and
disciplines, much of the criticism in extant writings on the diagram in architecture
presents an insular, superficial, biased, unrepresentative and anachronistic concept of
the forefront and futures of the diagram beyond the limits of architecture. More
specifically, criticisms of the diagram tend to be similar and they target similar issues -
for example, that diagrams:

43
· lack the aesthetic qualities of drawings or are not art;

• have negative and undesirable aspects because of their association with

44
formalism, reduction, abstraction and simplicity;

• deal poorly with their multisensory and phenomenological content (or that of a
45
design or building related to a diagram);

· are ideological, rhetorical and polemical though they are claimed to be neutral or
.. 46
unre Iate d to po I1t1cs;

· are not logically or clearly connected in a linear and deterministic or

methodologically transparent way to the resulting final building they are
. d wit. h;47
associate

• are scaled up or down erroneously and used in ways that confuse the map with
the territory or are pointlessly used to determine architecture or a space with
48
datascapes and indexes;

· are impoverished in the digital realm because digital tools and methods make the
ease of generating multiple and successive iterations of diagrams potentially
49
thoughtless;

50
· have not been used to engage fully with society and social issues;

· have not been used to explore architecture's full multidisciplinary potentials, and
connections and the negative consequences of extending these to domains
51
outside architecture; nor have the dangers and ease of erroneous
overextensions of architectural diagrams in to areas outside architecture or
architectural expertise been adequately documented.

33 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

A further analysis of the field also suggests a number of other, new criticisms of
architectural diagrams and texts about them. The most significant are that historical and
theoretical (and some design) researchinto diagrams in architecture:

• is lacking any explicit textual, theoretical engagement with some closely related
spatial design disciplines (such as interior design, landscape design, architectural
engineering) as well as with significant and relevant fields closely related to
architecture (such as interactive architecture, digitally designed architecture,
parametric architecture and new and emerging architectural technologies);

· does not engage with more general, important and recent diagram theory and
52
research (such as is found in the work of Michael Friendly, Alan Blackwell, M
53 54
Anderson et al and Frederik Stjernfelt);

· does not specifically addressthe recent, emerging impacts of new technologies

and the computer (such as interactive systems, parametric design, advanced
design and construction software - or example, the parametric design softwares
developed by MVRDVand GehryTechnologies- complex digital city models, the
micro-scale and nano-, femto- and pico-technologies, new remote
sensing/control/mapping technologies and others);

· needs a robust, fundamental taxonomy (or meta-taxonomy) or visual

chronology, encyclopaedia or other exhaustive, international, historical survey of
diagrams;

• lacks any survey of sceptical, negative criticisms - the overwhelmingly positive

theory does not include any multicase, in-depth or recent researchon the use of
architectural diagrams for exclusion, oppression, deception, obfuscation,
55
propaganda, manipulation and destruction; architecture as a domain seems
unaware of the more fundamental, non-architectural theories of the more
56
general impossibilities, imprecisions, limitations, weaknessesand threats of the
57 58
diagram, though other disciplines, such as cartography, are;

• is devoid of a sufficiently multicultural and international account of architectural

diagrams - diagrams and diagrammatic architecture exist in other cultures, as
59
shown in Aborigine, Chineseand other Asian geomantic diagrams (for example,
as mandalas, feng shui diagrams, etc), but these are largely ignored or
marginalised in the contemporary discourse on the diagram;

• in general, architecture (unlike some other disciplinary domains) lacks any kind
of clear, strategic, discipline-wide researchprogramme or any well-articulated or
researchedaccount of the possible futures of diagrams in architecture.

34 The Diagramsof Architecture

 1916 'T.:J.~1'/ M Duchamp
~_p..<?_linere
enameled
i4JJJO)~fdJ~T
1920

1930

1934 l.,,'77}!.,~.1'1:r.t-:
0 Reutersvard
3Ut i ~O)~ I!
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1940 v?r Ji.,~ .1., :r.t--

1940

1950

1957 .::C
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Yukimasa Matsuda , 2000. The history of two-dimensional expression of

preposterous 3-D form. Diagrams of space can be impossible things, lies ,
fakes and other egregious diagrammatic impostures. © Yukimasa Matsuda .

35 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

Such gaps in the literature raise important new questions in the discourse on the diagram,
such as precisely how can the diagram in architecture be used to change the world (either
inside or outside architecture) in any significant way? Which important diagrams are
missing? Which new diagrams could or should be invented? Which diagrams could or
should urgently be designed or built? What are the possibilities for productively
transferring diagram research in architecture to other domains? What kinds of research,
knowledge and radically new kinds of diagrammatic innovations are left for the diagram
to achieve in architecture? What are the most likely possible futures of diagrams in
architecture and in spatial design more widely?

The Diagrams of Architecture

Since the acceleration of the diagram debate during the 1980s and 1990s, the discourse
has advanced and grown in complexity and sophistication. The older generations of
diagram architects changed and developed their positions on the diagram. Some diagrams
were deepened and extended, some literally built, while others were altered, contradicted
and renounced, either completely or in parts. A new generation of architects have begun to
explore and develop critical designs and theories that explicitly engage with the problems,
gaps, biases, limitations and abuses of the architectural diagrams of their predecessors.
They have also addressed some new issues related to much older problems, and more
recent kinds of problem (such as globalisation, new technologies, the environment and
sustainability, and new kinds of political, social and cultural contexts) . The recent
innovations in the design and theorisation of the architectural diagram are considerable in
proportion to the as yet unsolved old problems, as well as to the new and different ones
their introduction entails. Architects have begun to search outside architecture for new
diagrammatic theories, methods, practices and uses, and to research and reflect on their
work in more eclectic , multimedia and multidisciplinary methodologies .

It seemed timely then to reconsider, in a sing le, larger book, a wider and deeper search
into the histories, theories and futures of diagrams in architecture. The book is designed
as a diagrammatic history, and overview of the present and future of diagrams, in
architecture and of architecture. Because the subject exceeds and lies partly beyond
architecture itself, the book also indicates how architectural diagrams (their histories,
theories and futures) might be linked to other designed, built, imagined, used and
experienced spaces (and their diagrams) that are not conventionally considered to be
architectural. Another goal of the book is to provide an indicative array of some of the
different ways of theorising and practising architecture through different theories and
practices of the diagram. The selection of texts is designed to be as representative
of the field as possible and to include the famous, classical, historical and
international canon of works, previously obscure or unpublished, marginal but
signif icant texts, and very recent original contributions . Selected from the historical
literature pub lished in (most ly English language) books, magazines, academic
journals and exhibition catalogues, the existing d iagrams and texts are supplemented

36 The Diagramsof Architecture

with new essays, commissioned works and diagrams that explore some existing facets
of the problems, criticisms, gaps, innovations and futures of the field.

To engage with developments in the field, the book brings together an edited collection of
11 previously published texts (including those by Anthony Vidler, Peter Eisenman, Ben van
Berkel and Caroline Bos (UNStudios), Lars Spuybroek, Winy Maas and MVRDV and Reiser+
Umemoto) and 14 newly commissioned texts (including those by Hanif Kara, Leon van
Schaik, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Patrik Schumacher and Charles Jencks and interviews with
Bernard Tschumi and Will Alsop). The book contains over 300 historical, full-colour,
previously published and new diagrams. These have been edited and designed into the book
for three reasons. Firstly, they form (as a whole) a diagram of the history and theories of
architecture (through the diagram and texts about the diagram). Secondly, they constitute a
diagram of diagrams in architecture. Lastly, the diagrams have been bui lt into and between
the articles and parts of the book to become a kind of critical diagram of The Diagrams of
Architecture itself. Designed as a kind of meta-diagram, they are positioned to reflect,
enhance and critique the texts, diagrams and book overall. The book is structured into three
main parts: "Histories and Theories of the Diagrams of Architecture', "Multidiscip linary
Dimensions of the Diagrams of Architecture' and "Architects of the Diagrams of Architecture'.

Part I: Histories and Theories of the Diagrams of Architecture

Contextualising the discourse on the diagram in history and from a number of theoretical
standpoints, existing articles by Anthony Vidler, Hyungmin Pai, Robert Somol, Peter
Eisenman and Sanford Kwinter, have been included. David Grahame Shane's new essay
surveys the history of the diagram in urban design and planning, providing a shift to a
larger-scale, temporal scope and disciplinary frame. Finally, new essays by Leon van
Schaik and Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka, explore the more subjective, poetic,
artistic, multisensory, phenomenological, contextual and culturally contingent
dimensions of the diagram in the design and experience of architecture and place.

Part II : Multidisciplinary Dimensions of the Diagrams of Architecture

Shifting the frame of reference, Part II explores the multidisciplinary links between the
diagram in architecture and in other related spatial design contexts. As a way of
delineating and investigating disciplinary specificity and limits, and the points of
similarity and difference between the diagram in architecture and the diagram in other
spatial design disciplines, a series of new essays was commissioned that investigates five
original new fields of research on the diagram in spatial design. Mark Taylor examines the
diagram in interior design and Jacky Bowring and Simon Swaffield together consider the
diagram in the fields of landscape design. Brian McGrath's research into the diagram in
urban design is followed by Peter A Hall's account of the diagram in high-tech and spatial
forms of information and interaction design, and Hanif Kara analyses diagrams in
engineering. This part concludes with Neil Spiller's fast-forward-looking description of
the diagram in cyber and digital-design-driven architecture.

37 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

Part Ill: Architects of the Diagrams of Architecture
Shifting in scope to the more case-study like level of individual designs, buildings,
projects and particular architects, Part Ill includes six republished essays, and four new
ones by architects, who have never written on the role of the diagram in their
architecture. Each essay was selected not only to provide more forensic insights into
specific architects whose work with the diagram is unique in some way, but also to
highlight the crucial themes, issues, questions and problems that diagrams raise at the
coalface of individual academic or professional architectural projects, practices and
theories. An interview with Bernard Tschumi opens this penultimate part of the book,
and, acknowledging Peter Eisenman as a leading authority in the field, a second essay by
Peter Eisenman follows. The remaining texts include an interview with Will Alsop, and
essays by Wouter Deen and Udo Garritzmann (on the diagrams of OMA), Alejandro
Zaera-Polo (Foreign Office Architects), Will Alsop, Winy Maas (MVRDV), Ben van Berke!
and Caroline Bos (UNStudio), Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto (Reiser+ Umemoto),
Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects) and Lars Spuybroek (NOX).

Epilogues
Concluding the book by looking forward, Charles Jencks's essay on the subject of
diagrams in the evolution of architecture argues for the diagram's value not just as an
interpretative, historical and theory-building tool but as a generative, prognostic,
predictive and futurological device, and a method . Lastly, the 'Epilogue' essay is written
as a beginning of a projective conjecture, as the start of a conclusion on some of the
many possible futures of the diagram in architecture.

Beyond The Diagrams of Architecture

Balancing the need for inclusion with the demands of space, much regretted violence has
been done both to cut down the texts and to excise images from the large corpus of
designed and written research in this field. There are some inevitable omissions and some
unavoidably awkward adjacencies and transitions . Foucault's and Deleuze and Guattari's
texts on diagrams are not republished as they are discussed in many of the texts included
here. More thorough, extensive, international, multidisciplinary, visual and historical
theorisations of the field also await further research and publication. There are some
regrettable absences, such as other writings on the architectural diagram by Anthony
Vidler, texts by Bart Lootsma, Pier-Paulo Aurelli and Gabrielle Mastrigli, Jeffrey Kipnis,
Andrew Benjamin and Lawrence Barth, and more generally the meta-taxonomy of
diagrams research by Alan Blackwell and Yuri Engelhardt. The limits of the book meant
that these many interesting links between the diagrams of architecture and those of
other disciplines could not be explored more fully. To mitigate this, references were
actively encouraged and included in the essays and images to imply other, less present,
but nonetheless important, issues in the discourse on the architectural diagram. The
ultimately ironic and conceptual idea behind the book is that it operates as a diagram of
different, absent, utopian, dystopian, impossible and possibly future diagrams of space.

38 The Diagramsof Architecture

 1
Parameter~

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Cluste,ing
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imePrevention
,.,_ .._ ___ 1-0-
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The Functionmixer, software for programmatic mixture, 2005. Parameters have weight
factors as sliders, by which users control the design process. By adjusting parameters,
different spatial models will appear. The digital becomes personal.© MVRDV/cThrough.

The Flll1ctionmixer, software for programmatic mixture, 2005. Screenshot. The Spatial,
Economic and Sociological sectors are maximised, with interventions on Daylight, F1exibility,
Construction cost, Crime preventions and Accessibility. © MVRDV/cThrough.

39 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

The Separation Barrier
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40 TheDiagramsof Architecture
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top: NASA, diagrams designed by Carl Sagan for communication with extraterrestrials ,
1972-3. Etched on to gold plates aboard the Pioneer 10 and 11 mission spacecraft, these
diagrams contain fundamental knowledge about life on earth: time, space, scale, humans and
the position of the earth relative to the sun, solar system and universe. The diagrams also show
the spacecraft itself in relation to all these other elements . These diagrams are now the furthest
from earth and among the first human artefacts to leave our solar system . © NASA.

above: Joep van Lieshout, diagram of the Technocrat, 2003 . Reproduced by

permission of Atelier Van Lieshout, photo and © Atelier Van Lieshout.

opposite: Eyal Wiezman and B'Tselem, February 2008. Map of the fragmentation of
the West Bank showing the diagrams of the extending 'fingers ' of occupation and
oppression through the construction of barriers , checkpoints and other Israeli
restrictions on freedom of movement.© Eyal Weizman and B'Tselem 2002-08.

41 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

 Randy Liekenjie, 2006-7, diagram as material.© Randy Liekenjie, notation as
material copy . Part of a series entitled 'Choreography of Mythic Inflation'.

Notes
1 S Kostoff, The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanmgs Through History, Thames & Hudson
(London), 1999, p 164.
2 The York University portal for information on the history of information visualisation and Friendly' s
chronology of diagrams, graphics and data visualisations is the most extensive and current
source: http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/milestone/
(accessed 29 January 2009).
3 G Schuller, Designing Universal Knowledge, Lars Milller Publishers (Baden), 2009, and various
books by E Tufte such as Envisioning Information (1990), Visual Explanations (1997), Visual and
Statisf.lcal Thinking (1997), The Visual Display of Quanu·tau·veInformation (2001) and Beautiful
Evidence (2006), all published by Graphics Press (Cheshire, Connecticut), are useful introductions
to this field.
4 AF Blackwell and Y Engelhardt, 'A Meta-Taxonomy for Research', in M Anderson, B Meyer and P
Olivier (eds), Diagrammatic Representation and Reasoning, Springer (London), 2002, pp 47-64.
5 M Carpo, Architecture in the Age of Prinf.lng, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2001, discusses the lost
Vitruvian diagrams and Guillaume De Philadrier's list (1544) of the images in the original scrolls of
De Architectura, none of which survived into the manuscript era.
6 Klaus Herdeg's The Decorated Diagram: Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the Bauhaus
Legacy, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1985, and Peter Eisenman's Diagram Dian·es, Thames &
Hudson (London), 1999, were the first.
7 The most extensive essays on this topic include E Klein and E Taveme, 'Painters and Satellites
Urban Diagrams: Problems of Interpretation in Urban Observation', OASE (Rotterdam), no 48,
1998, and J Krauss, 'Information at a Glance: On the History of the Diagram', OASE (Rotterdam), no
48, 2000, pp 41-62.
8 DG Shane, Recombinant Urbanism, \¥iley-Academy (Chichester), 2005, constitutes one of the most
extensive, rigorous and significant collections of diagrams in the histories and theories of urban
design (and architecture, to a lesser extent).

42 The Diagramsof Architecture

 9 A recent visual survey, which al~o comes close is B Ferrater and C Ferrater, Synchronizing
Geometry: Landscape Architecture & Construction/Ideographic Resources, Actar (Barcelona), 2006,
pp 1-4 7, but it is limited to a historical and structural survey of the diagram in 20th-century
architecture and architectural engineering.
10 Paul Emmon's research into bubble diagrams and networks (P Emmons, 'Embodying Networks:
Bubble Diagrams and the Image of Modem Organicism', journal of Architecture, vol 11 no 4, pp
441-46), describes the historical, scientific and religious evolution of bubble diagrams, network
diagrams and such abstract diagrams as chains, stairs and trees in architecture.
11 Such as OASE: Diagrams (Rotterdam), no 48, 1998, Wouter Deen, Udo Garritzman and Like
Bijlsmer (eds); Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos (eds), ANY: Diagram vVork (New York), no 23',
1998, ppl4-57; Daidalos: Diagram.mania (Berlin), no 74, January 2000, pp 6-79; Fisuras: Diagramas
(Madrid), vol 12, July 2002; Lotus International: Diagrams, no 127, June 2006, pp 4-129;
Architectural Review, January 2006.
12 The critical anthology of D Cosgrove (ed), Mappings, Reak:tion (London), 1999; Kr-Iarm on, You Are
Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, Princeton Architectural Press,
(New York), 2003, and J Abrams and P Hall (eds), Elsewhere/Mapping: Mapping New
Cartographies of Networks and Tem ·tones, University of Minnesota Design Institute (Minneapolis,
MN), 2006, include useful but fragmented or narrowly focused visual surveys.
13 B Lootsma, 'The Diagram Debate', in Fisuras: Diagramas (Madrid), no 12.5, July 2002, pp 146-176.
14 In Eisenman' s assessment, Deleuze interprets the diagrams as 'no longer an auditory or visual
archive, but a map, a cartography that is coextensive with the whole social field. It is an abstract
machine,' P Eisenman, 'Diagram· An Original Scene of Writing', in P Eisenman (introduction by RE
Somol), Peter Eisenman: Diagram Dianes, Thames & Hudson (London), 1999, p 30.
15 P Aurelli and G Mastrigli in their article Architecture After the Diagram'. In Lotus International,
1

Diagrams, 127, 2006, pp 96-105, date the rise of diagrammatic city planning to the late 1940s but
the field has some earlier precedents, for example, the earliest cadastral plan, produced in 1427
was to assess property ownership and for the collection of taxes in Florence.
16 J Krauss, 'Information at a Glance: On the History of the Diagram', OASE (Rotterdam), no 48, 2000
pp 3-29.
17 See the Periodic Table of diagrams at www.visual-literacy.org/periodic _table/periodic table.html
and the Wikipedia entry for diagrams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagram. Both provide an
indication of the general and highly specific types of extant diagrams currently available.
18 Rowan Wilken elaborates a more extensive interpretation of the etymology of the diagram,
drawing on Jacques Derrida. See R Wilken, Diagranunatology, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/
thread/electropoetics/intermingled (accessed 29 January 2009).
19 The cartoon is a diagrammatic in so far as it is reductive and abstracting. The stereotype and the
caricature are, in this sense, also diagrammatic characterisation. OMA has reduced its buildings to
silhouetted cartoon characters in their book Content (2003), recognismg the cartoon's iconic
powers. Neurath and Clendining used cartoons and FAT, Wes Jones and Nigel Coates still use
cartoons m their architectural designs.
20 See the chapter ·small Outline of a Theory of the Sketch' in F Stjernfelt, Diagrammatology: An
lnvesf.lgation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and SemioUcs,Kluwer (Dordrecht) 2007.
21 Arthur Miller claims that diagrams and visualisations in the arts and sciences played a 'causal role
in scientific creativity', that these are 'usually essential for scientific advance', and can generate
'scientific theories that can carry truth value' (pp 320-l)l and that 'a higher plateau in problem
solvmg is attained once visual representations are offered' (p 399), in A Miller Insights of Genius:
Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000, pp 321-326.
22 G Deleuze, Foucault, University of Minneapolis Press (Minneapolis, MN), 1988.
23 For Deleuze's philosophy of the diagram see G Deleuze, 'The Diagram' in Constantin Boundas
(ed), The Deleuze Reader, trans Constantin Boundas and Jacqueline Code, Columbia University
Press (New York), 1993.
24 See C Buci-Glucksman, 'On the Diagram in Art' ANY: Diagram Work (New York), no 23, 1998,
pp34-6 and P Ednie Brown, 'The Texture of Diagrams: Reasonings on Greg Lynn and Francis
Bacon', Da1dalos. Diagrammania (Berlin) no 74, January 2000, pp 72-9.
25 S Cassara (ed), Peter Eisenman: Feints, Skira (Milan), 2006, pp 19-27 .
26 A Vidler, 'What is a Diagram Anyway?' in S Cassara (ed), Pet.erEisenman: Feints, Skira (Milan),
2006, 19-27 .

43 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture

27 RE Somol, 'Dummy text, or the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture', P Eisenman,
Diagram Diaries, p 7.
28 P Ednie-Brown, 'The Texture of Diagrams: Reasonings on Greg Lynn and Francis Bacon', Daidalos:
Diagrammania (Berlin), no 74, January 2000, pp 72-9.
29 The 'diagrammatic intention' or the state of mind which intends to experience the world in,
through or as diagrams is, as Stjernfelt notes, 'in itself an interpretant of a symbol' and therefore
the antecedent condition of its object, forming the equivalent of a Kantian 'schema' and as such
part of its (phenomenological) being (F Stjernfelt, Diagrammatology, Springer Verlag (Dordrecht),
2007 p 102). For a more detailed discussion of intentional diagrammatic perception and the use of
an analytical and experiential use of diagrams see the chapter titled 'Into The Picture' in this
volume.
30 Importantly, Ben van Berkel from UN Studio writes that diagrams can be defined by how they are
used, namely that anything can become a diagram if it is used as a diagram. In this case his
example is his use of the 'Manimal' (portrait), a hybrid, composite face of a man, an ape and a
snake, as a 'diagram' in his interview, in 'Between Ideogram and Image-Diagram', OASE:
Diagrams (Rotterdam), no 48, 1998, pp 63-71.
31 Krauss and Bois discuss in R Krauss and YA Bois, Formless: A User's Guide, Zone (New York),
1997, Warhol's use of the diagram in his 'Dance Diagram' of 1962 (p 99) and Lacan's 'L-Schema'
diagram (p 91) in the context of the discourse of the formless in art. RE Somol, 'Dummy Text, or
the Diagrammatic Basis of Contemporary Architecture', P Eisenman, Diagram Dian·es, pp 6-25,
also refers to the 'informal' nature of the diagram.
32 For some, like Jacques Herzog, quoted in the leaflet to accompany the exhibition 'Herzog & de
Meuron: An Exhibition' at Tate Modem, London, in 2005, they are part of 'the waste products of a
thought process'; quoted in Sheena Wagstaff, 'Herzog & de Meuron: An Exhibition', exhibition
leaflet, 2005, unpaginated.
33 Perception is itself diagrammatic in the sense that multisensory experiences are the result of
disparate sensory impressions; each is an abstract, fragmented representation of the perceived
phenomenon, which are then combined in the brain. The Gutenberg Diagram is the diagram that
describes the pattern traced by the eyes when the focus is aimed at evenly organised, similar
visual information. Research from brain and cognitive sciences (see C Ware, Information
Visualisation: Perception for Design, Elsevier (San Francisco) 2004, and B Roska and F Werblin,
'Vertical interactions Across Ten Parallel, Stacked Representations in the Mammalian Retina',
Nature, 410.6828, 29 March 2001, pp 583-87) shows that the brain processes visual input from the
eyes into a series of between 10 and 12 different, specific, simpler and more abstract versions of
the overall impression and then recombines them into a single conscious sense impression. See
also the chapters 'Christ Levitating and Two Vanishing Squares' and 'Into The Picture', both in F
Stjernfelt, Diagrammatology, Springer Verlag (Dordrecht), 2007, for an important best account of
diagrammatic visuality. Though this is limited to the contexts of art, the spatial dimensions could
easily be extended to the perception of architecture and other designed space.
34 U Eco, Open Works, Hutchinson Radius (London), 1989.
35 For example, the various geometrical diagrams developed by Brunelleschi in the 15th century.
These form the methodological and spatial basis for paintings, drawings and sculptures that use
linear, geometric perspective and projection. Diagrams operate in this way in skeagraphy,
chorography and in the digital design and parametric control points, grids, numerical menus and
tables and other geometrical, process or effect-control and interfacing instruments and apparatus
of design software.
36 For more on this distinction see the chapter 'Small outline of a theory of the sketch', in F Stjemfelt.
Diagrammatology, Springer Verlag (Dordrecht), 2007, pp 321-26.
37 Anthony Blunt,Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1660, Oxford University Press (Oxford), [1940] 1985, p 49.
38 The design methods and methodology movement (of which Bruce Archer, John Zeisel, Brian
Lawson, John Chris Jones and Nigel Cross are the most significant examples) of the 1960s and
1970s favoured the diagram for its associations with scientific clarity, AI studies and computational,
cybernetic systematicity. Christopher Alexander's early work on the diagram and its relations to
pattern was clearly influenced by this movement. This has now been supplemented/superseded
by more mixed methods and methodologies from the social sciences, arts and humanities.
39 Some examples are the deployment and combination of different, multiple graphic systems of

44 The Diagramsof Architecture

 icons and symbols, textual or other forms of annotations, arrows, axes of factors and variables, and
discrete, specific notational systems.
40 P Eisenman, Diagram Dian ·es, Thames & Hudson (London), 1999, pp 23-4.
41 The 'Notation' in art exhibition at the KMC in Karlsruhe, Berlin, September-November 2008 (and
the accompanying exhibition catalogue, Notation: Kall-.111 und Fann in den Kunst, Dieter Appelt,
Hube11us von Amelunxen and Peter Weibel (eds), Berlin, 2008), is a precedent.
42 Such as OASE:Diagrams (Rotterdam), no 48, 1998, Wouter Deen and Udo Ganitzman and L
Bijlsmer (eds); ANY:Diagram Work (New York), no 23, 1998, pp 14-57; Daidalos: Diagramn1ania,
(Berlin), no 74, 1999 Qanuary 2000), pp 6-79; Fisuras: Diagramas (Madrid), vol 12.5, July 2002;
Lotus International: Diagrams (Milan), no 127, June 2006, pp 4-129; Architectural Review, (London),
January 2006.
43 See for example C Buci-Glucksman, 'On the Diagram in Art', ANY: Diagram Works (New York), no
23, 1998, pp34-6 and P Ednie-Brown, 'The Texture of Diagrams: Reasonings on Greg Lynn and
Francis Bacon', Daidalos: Diagrammania (Berlin), no 74, January 2000, pp 72-9.
44 Reiser+ Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2006.
45 A history of this critique and of others such as abstraction, reductivism, simplicity, minimalism,
universalism, essentialism in the diagram and diagram architecture can be found in A Vidler,
'Diagrams of Diagrams: Architectural Abstraction and Modern Representation', Represent.at.ions,
(Berkeley, CA), no 72, Autumn 2000, pp 1-20; P Aurelli and G Mastrigli, 'Architecture after the
Diagram', Lot.us lntemat.ional: Diagrams (Milan), no 127, June 2006, pp 4-129. See also Reiser+
Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics.
46 H Pai, The Portfolio and the Diagram, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002, and B Lootsma, 'The
Diagram Debate', Fisuras: Diagra1nas (Madrid), no 12.5, July 2002, pp 146-79.
47 Greg Lynn, 'Forms of Expr ,ession: The Protofunctional Potential of Diagrams in Architectw-al
Design', El Croqu1s (Barcelona), vol 72 no 1, 1995, p 18 and B Lootsma, 'The Diagram Debate', pp
146-79.
48 Reiser + Umemoto, AUas of Novel Tectonics.
49 A Vidler, 'vVhat is a Diagram Anyway?' in S Cassara (ed), Pet.er Eisenman: Feints, Skira (Milan),
2006 pp 19-27.
50 DA Barber, 'Militant Architecture', in J Rendell, J Hill et al, Cn"t.1calArchitecture, Routledge, 2007, pp
57-66, and Robert Somol and Sarah \\!biting, 'Notes Around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods
of Modernism', in Michael Osman, Adam Ruedig, Matthew Seidel and Lisa Tilney (eds), Mining
Autonomy, special issue of Perspect.a (Cambridge, MA), no 33, 2002, pp 72-7.
51 D Barber, 'Militant Architecture', pp 57-66.
52 The York University project is a major multidisciplinary research project in this domain,
particularly because of its emphasis on the visual/designed aspects of the field. See
http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/milestone/ (accessed 29 January 2009).
53 AF Blackwell and Y Engelhardt, 'A Meta-Taxonomy for Diagram Research', in M Anderson, B
Meyer and P Olivier (eds), Diagrammatic Representation and Reasoning, Sage (Thousand Oaks,
CA), 2nd edition, 2002, pp 47-64.
54 M Anderson, B Meyer and P Olivier (eds), Diagrammatic Representation and Reasoning.
55 Though Eyal Wiezman's work on mapping and diagramming Israeli spatial oppression activities in
Gaza, and Architecture and Justice's various mapping and diagramming projects, are important
on-going projects in this field.
56 See also Z Kulpa, 'Self-consistency, imprecision, and impossible cases in diagrammatic
representations', MCV. vol 12 no 1, 2003, pp 147-160.
57 One exception is the essay on the nihilistic diagram by P Aw-elli and G Mastrigli: 'Architecture
After the Diagram', Lotus International: Diagrams (Milan), no 127, June 2006, pp 96-105.
58 M Monrnonier, How to Lie with Maps, University of Chicago Press (Chicago), 2nd edition, 1996.
59 See, for example, the chapter 'Up, Across and Along', in T Ingold, Lines: A Bn"ef History, Routledge
(Oxford), 2007, pp 72-103.

© 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

45 Introduction:Historiesand Theoriesof the Diagramsof Architecture