The importance of diagrams in architecture as a field of cultural-political plasticity

The architectural diagram can be used as a device that blurs the distinction between subject and object, bringing forth tensions of looking in and through, of being in and out. Jacques Derrida, a French continental philosopher primarily interested in deconstruction, has notably theorized the use of the architectural diagram, and an important idea the Derrida has raised was that of différance. Différance, for Derrida, means not only to ‘differ’ but also to ‘defer’ the meaning if anything, endlessly, because it is never total or finished. This open process of meaning is an obvious fact of cultures since they are historical and changing. For Derrida, an architectural diagram subverts the dominant oppositions and hierarchies currently constitutive of the discourse, and can be modes of becoming an emergence of différance. Architectural diagrams in this sense can operate as an abstract machine that describes the power relations and the narratives of the city.

Operating from a place similar to that of writing, the diagram can be experimental in the sense that it can achieve emancipation and autonomy in the discipline, it can be anti-hierarchy, anti-form, anti-structure, and it can reveal clearly the power relations and mosaic of the city. The diagram as an abstract machine composed of these elements are activators that help trigger constructions that are neither objective or subjective, neither before theory nor after theory, neither conceptual or opportunist, the location of the diagram is in the inter-subjective, durational and operational field where meanings are formed and transformed interactively.

This thesis will outline the methods of achieving such a diagram, will analyze the current use of diagrams in architecture, outline the implications of which (history, trends, influences), and will aim to bring about a contemporary (in an Agamben sense of the word), autonomous place of abstraction.