The interface conditions of architectural diagrams: "Non-plan manifesto" and its diagram practices

In architectural discourse, diagrams have always been part of the thinking processes, and they have an interface condition to support the rise of the latest ideas. However, with the 1960s progressing towards the 1970s, the subject of diagram revivals with new forms of diagram practices of visionary architectural figures, following their novel anxieties. The thesis aims to track this change in diagram practices and examines diagram's distinct roles in the architectural thinking processes with their varied interface conditions. Cedric Price, Paul Barker, Peter Hall, and Reyner Banham intended to cover the common anxieties of the decade with a manifesto: Non-Plan: An Experiment in Freedom in 1969 and explained why designers need a tool that ensures change. As a method of tracing these changing practices in architectural diagrams, the thesis mentions Non-Plan as it triggered the use of diagrams to promote change. The thesis searches the shift in the use of architectural diagrams and their changing roles. To point out the changing roles of diagrams, it mentions precedent diagram practices via giving reference to Anthony Vidler's Modernist Diagram discussion. It mentions Modernist Diagram via diagram practices of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand and Rudolf Wittkower and finds that Modernist Diagrams derive knowledge from exact drawings of built objects and those diagrams are tools for analytical observation of the architectural objects. However, diagram practices of Non-Plan, by referring to exact drawings, negates plan practices due to the constraints of plan implementations as they're unable to adapt to changing conditions. The thesis examines the diagrams of Non-Plan from the diagram practices of Yona Friedman and Cedric Price. Those diagrams are interfaces apt for changing; they propose a deliberate incompleteness, a tactic to support the rise of the latest ideas. It is found that Non-Plan diagrams do not relate to an exact condition of a built object; it is an interface that pushes the limits of the thinking processes.