Diagrammatic Thinking in Architecture, Criticism, Form and Culture

Abstract This article investigates the role of the diagram in contemporary architecture through a critical reading of the essay Diagram: An Original Scene of Writing by Peter Eisenman — a seminal text that shifts the diagram from the technical domain to the domain of architectural writing and criticism. This analysis is developed in dialogue with contributions from authors such as Deleuze and Guattari, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, Greg Lynn, and Andrea Palladio. The article proposes that the diagram has ceased to be merely a representational tool and has become a conceptual, autonomous, and generative operator, capable of mediating between theory and practice by defining concrete formal strategies and articulating conceptual abstraction with specific constructive decisions. Five principal dimensions are addressed: autonomy, process, temporality, relationship to construction, and critique of representation. The study further discusses the limits and ambiguities of Eisenman’s approach, proposing a reading of the diagram as a theoretical-practical medium rooted in formal, contextual, and pedagogical decisions. By integrating different traditions — classical, modern, deconstructivism, and digital — that inform distinct ways of conceiving form and space, as well as diverse temporal scales, it is argued that diagrammatic thinking enables a more open, indeterminate, and reflective architectural practice. Keywords: Diagram; Contemporary architecture; Peter Eisenman; Representation; Design process; Conceptual criticism.