In some ways, the writings of Stan Allen and Berkel & Bos correspond to the notions presented by Corner’s mapping essay. One recurring notion is the role of the diagram or map as a generative tool. In particular, the forward-looking capacity of the diagram is emphasized. Berkel & Bos write: “The diagrammatic or abstract machine does not function to represent, even something real, but rather constructs a real that is yet to come.” Allen writes of how the diagram anticipates “yet to be realized relationships” and asserts: “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 many possible worlds.” This idea of examining and discovering future potentialities via diagramming relates to Rem Koolhaas’s use of mapping to evocatively consider future possibilities, as presented by Corner. The correlation with Koolhaas and Corner continues in the discussion of layering as a representational tool. Allen describes how “diagram architecture looks for effects on the surface, but by layering surface on surface, a new kind of depth-effect is created.” Koolhaas’s work exhibits this depth-effect.

I appreciate the essays’ discussion of diagrams as a means to navigate architecture’s oscillation between “the world of ideas and the physical world” and traverse and address dualities within architectural practice. Although I have made great strides in my understanding of how a diagram operates, the boundary between idea, diagram and design remains indistinct in my mind. This blurriness is compounded by seemingly contradictory statements such as: “To see architecture as a built line diagram is practically the reverse of our position. More to the point is the general understanding of the diagram as a statistical or schematic image” (Berkel & Bos); and “a diagram architecture is an architecture that behaves like a diagram, indifferent to the specific means of its realization” (Allen). While I do understand the different terms with which the two essays consider the relationship between building and diagram, as I consider my work, the leap between one and the other remains a chasm that is of yet not easily traversed.