100202 - diagrams matter

Here are my notes from Stan Allen's essay "Diagrams Matter."

A diagram’s primary function is to think about organization.

Organization speaks about relationship.

Relationships are not about objects, but interface.

Diagrams are therefore abstract.

Because they speak about relationships in the abstract, diagrams are transportable between heterogeneous regimes.

In an architectural context, organizations can help distribute program in space.

“A diagram is therefore not a thing in itself, but a description of potential relationships among elements; not only an abstract model of the way things behave in the world, but a map of possible worlds.”

Architecture can be measured by performative effects (what is does) more than its material durability.

Actualizing the virtual: innovating (imagination) vs. representation (imitation)

There are many techniques of actualization:
- traditional: projection, calculation, etc.
- contemporary: film performance, computer simulation

Architects move between heterogeneous media, diagrams can facilitate this movement.

Diagrams are open to information from outside the discipline, i.e. interdisciplinary research.

Diagrams point outward, they suggest potential relationships.

The graphics of a diagram are crucial; nothing can enter architecture until it is in graphic form.

Translation (general, personal) vs. transposition (part-to-part relationships of matter, always leaves gaps).

Diagrams function through matter-matter relationships, not through interpretation.

The shift from translation to transposition does not erase meaning, but collapses interpretation.

A diagrammatic way of thinking is less concerned with the production of meaning than the immediacy and pleasure of the literal.