4 Diagrams
The speech presents four definitions of a diagram to discuss different aspects of architectural media. The first diagram is a skeleton-like sketch of elements under consideration. It is a whole consisting of interrelated parts subject to experimentation. It is assumed to operate in a manner similar to another whole of interrelated parts. It is a mental map. The second diagram is a notation. It uses abstract signs and codes to notate information and describes actions and events. It has no visual likeness to an object under consideration. It is well suited to map complex and volatile phenomena and develop strategies to influence a given context. The third diagram is a motif. It is the way elements of an architectural medium are distributed and influence each other. It is not translatable, nor does it resemble an object under consideration. The true function of the motif is to be suggestive. The motif is the possibility of a fact – not the pictorial fact itself. The fourth diagram is the »other half« of the mental map. It is the whole of interrelated parts that the medium relates to. It can for instance be a social diagram.
Peter Bertram is an architect, researcher, and educator employed as an associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is head of the master’s programme Art and Architecture and head of the organizing committee of the artistic research biennial Works+Words in Copenhagen. His main research areas are artistic methodology and architectural typology. He has exhibited his work on many occasions in Denmark and internationally. He has published several books on his work, including The Makings of an Architectural Model (2012), Problem Invention (2019) and The Windy House (2024) in press.
Image: Peter Bertram, Kyoto Diagram