The Diagrammatic Inquiry of Architectural Media

Authors

  • Peter Bertram The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, School of Architecture (KADK)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.12.1.1757

Abstract

According to the philosopher C.S. Peirce the diagram is a system of interrelated parts that operates in a manner similar to another system of interrelated parts. It is a mental map of relations. It drives an open-ended inquiry on a given problem. In architectural discourse a diagram is often defined as a particular form of drawing. It is a simplified image and/or it uses a notation system. In this context, the latter is termed a digital diagram. However, an architectural medium has material properties that influence both the making and the translation of the drawing. It is both a singular artefact and a set of instructions for actions undertaken in another space than that of the medium. This article introduces the notion of an immanent diagram to discuss how the composition of a drawing is distributed. The proposition is that the architectural diagrammatic inquiry operates in the struggle between digital and analogue diagrams. I develop the argument using a traditional architectural drawing as a starting point. In the last section, I discuss a contemporary computer based design practice in which drawings and prototype modelling constitute a heterogeneous technological environment.

Author Biography

Peter Bertram, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, School of Architecture (KADK)

Peter Bertram is an architect, researcher and educator at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture (KADK), Copenhagen. He received his master’s degree from the Royal Academy in 1995 and completed his PhD there in 2008: an artistic development work concerned with the conditions for the production of the new in an architectural process. He has exhibited his work in Denmark and abroad, including the Architecture Biennale in Venice. His articles have been published in journals, anthologies and conferences, among others Frembringelse(The Bringing Forth of Difference) (2009),The Makings of an Architectural Model and Academic Dissensus (2016). He is head of the architecture committee in the PhD-school at KADK. In 2015–16 he was Institute leader at the Institute for building culture at KADK. He is one of three initiators to the first international biennale for Artistic Research at KADK held in the spring of 2017.

References

Agamben, Giorgio. ‘Absolute Immanence.’ In Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy edited by Daniel Heller-Roazen, 220-239. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Allen, Stan. Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation. Amsterdam: G+B International, 2000.

Ayres, Phil. ‘Introduction: Persistent Modelling – Reconsidering Relations.’ In Persistent Modelling. Extending the Role of Architectural Representation, 1-3. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2012.

Busk, Malene. ‘The Diagrams of Peirce and Deleuze.’ In Cartography, Morphology, Topology edited by Cort Ross Dinesen, 170-173. København: Kunstakademiets Arkitektskoles Forlag, 2009.

Delanda, Manuel. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.

Deleuze, Gilles. Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books, 1988.

Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon. The Logic of Sensation. London: Continuum, 2004.

Goodman, Nelson. The Languages of Art. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett publishing Company, INC., 1976.

Massumi, Brian, ‘”Technical Mentality” Revisited: Brian Massumi on Gilbert Simondon.’ In Being and Technology edited by Arne De Boever, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe and Ashley Woodward, 19-36. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.

Merrill, Michael. Louis Kahn – Drawing to Find Out: The Dominican Motherhouse and the Patient Search for Architecture. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2010.

Peirce, Charles Sanders. ‘The First Rule of Logic.’ In The Essential Peirce edited by The Peirce Edition Project, 42-56. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Simondon, Gilbert. ‘Technical Mentality.’ In Being and Technology edited by Arne De Boever, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe and Ashley Woodward, 1-15. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.

Stjernfeldt, Frederik. Diagrammatology: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology and Semiotics. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007.

Vidler, Anthony. ‘What Is a Diagram Anyway?.’ In Feints edited by Silvio Cassarà, 19-27. Milano: Skira Editore, 2006.

Downloads

Published

2018-04-30

Issue

Issue # 22 | Spring / Summer 2018 | Exploring Architectural Form: A Configurative Triad

Section

Article

License

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.