SHANGHAI.- Prada presents “Diagrams”, an exhibition conceived by AMO/OMA, the studio founded by Rem Koolhaas. The project, organized with the support of Fondazione Prada, will be on view from 14 March to 21 June 2026 at Prada Rong Zhai, the historic 1918 residence in Shanghai restored by Prada and reopened in 2017.
First presented at Fondazione Prada in Venice from May to November 2025, “Diagrams” investigates the visual communication of data as a powerful tool for constructing meaning, comprehension, or persuasion, and a pervasive instrument for analyzing, understanding, and transforming the surrounding world. It seeks to encourage dialogue and speculative reflection on the relationship between human intelligence, scientific and cultural phenomena, and the creation and dissemination of knowledge.
The second chapter of the exhibition at Prada Rong Zhai gathers more than 150 items—including documents, printed publications, digital images, and videos—sourced from the 12th century to the present day and drawn from various geographical and cultural contexts. Materials are displayed according to a thematic principle that reflects some main contemporary world urgencies and demonstrates the diagram’s transversal and diachronic nature. The project benefits from the extensive research conducted by Fondazione Prada in close collaboration with Rem Koolhaas and Giulio Margheri, Associate Architect at OMA.
As stated by Rem Koolhaas, “In my view, the diagram has been an almost permanent tool. For example, in the early stages of our research, we discovered three-dimensional diagrams from South Africa dating back to 40,000 BCE, as well as wood-carved maps of the Greenlandic coastline made on the island of Ammassalik. This demonstrates that the diagram is an enduring form of communication that adapts to whatever medium exists at the time. Regardless of the medium, a diagram serves didactic (explanatory) or suggestive (persuasive) purposes. This means that it not only exists by default in any new medium but can also be applied to virtually any area of human life. Fashion, religion, or the history of social inequality can be interpreted as a diagram. I deeply enjoy this interdisciplinary aspect of the diagram, its invariable attribute—its independence from language (words) makes it one of the most effective forms of representation.”
The exhibition design, developed by AMO/OMA, unfolds across two levels of Prada Rong Zhai, throughout rooms that were once the theatre of private life, studio, conversation, and social gatherings of its owners. According to the principle of “now urgencies,” the show is structured into five thematic sections: Built Environment, Body, Resources, Truth, and Value. Within each section, diagrams appear in a wide range of formats and media—drawings, books, prints, and digital contents—to highlight the evolution of data communication and reflect how these instruments have adapted over time to different contexts, technologies, and audiences. Two additional focuses complement these themes: one dedicated to the Chinese Sancai Tuhui encyclopedia (Ming period, 1368–1644) and the other to the work of the African American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963).
The new chapter of “Diagrams” at Prada Rong Zhai offers a further exploration of the visual dissemination of data across time and territories. A pivotal case study for this exhibition is the Sancai Tuhui, one of the earliest illustrated encyclopedic projects in China, a 106- volume illustrated encyclopedia of the Ming period (1368–1644) compiled by father-and-son scholars Wang Qi and Wang Siyi. On view in the Ballroom of Prada Rong Zhai, the selection presents diagrams drawn from the various categories of the encyclopedia: astronomy, geography, figures, seasons, architecture, utensils, human body, literature and history, human affairs, rituals and systems, precious objects, clothing, birds and beasts, and plants. Universal and enduring across centuries, the themes of the Sancai Tuhui resonate with today’s urgent concerns, which unfold throughout the exhibition. This historical case is paired with the work of the sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, renowned for his studies and infographics on African American communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The charts he created for “The Exhibit of American Negroes” at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 serve as an initial reference for exploring the communicative power of graphic representation and its potential for constructing social awareness. Du Bois’s work marks a crucial moment in the foundation of the eventual rise of mass communication.
Throughout history, diagrams have been essential tools for understanding the structure and dynamics of increasingly complex man-made environments. They serve to survey land, trace movement, map differences, and analyze the social fabric of cities. These functions are explored in the Built Environment section, which includes works such as the Gansu Defense Diagram – China Wall (1507–1567), mapping the military defenses of the Gansu Garrison Command during the Ming Dynasty through its fortified network from east to west, and OMA’s City of Exacerbated Difference (2001). This diagram illustrates the uneven, accelerated patterns of urbanization in the Pearl River Delta at the turn of the century, spanning Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and other rapidly expanding cities. The delta has become an epicenter of urbanization in Asia, forming what Koolhaas defined as the “City of Exacerbated Difference”. Diagrams are also active instruments to analyze and control intervention, serving to manage energy use and enhance protection from atmospheric elements. With growing environmental concerns in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, studies evolved into a broader preoccupation with sustainability, resource efficiency, and ecological awareness in architectural design. The section includes digital works and videos from international practices such as Arup, Atmos Lab, Transsolar, and architect Philippe Rahm, which address recent and ongoing studies on climate and energy efficiency in architecture.
Visual schemes have also been employed to represent the human body, ranging from medical and anatomical studies to philosophical and spiritual interpretations. Some diagrams depict the body as a mechanical system, mapping nerves, muscles, and circulation with scientific precision, while others conceive it as a symbolic or spiritual entity in line with mystical or holistic traditions. Among the works included in the Body section is the Neijing Tu (1886), a Taoist colored map of the ‘Interior Landscape’ depicting the human body as a microcosm: in its anatomical symbolism, the spine is shown as a mountain and organs as mythological figures.
Diagrams can also serve as a visual framework for tracing the circulation and management of materials and human labor. These functions are explored in the Resources section, which spans early studies of the origins and flows of disputed goods and the military employment of human capital to recent mapping of renewable resources, with a focus on production, consumption, and waste of food. A notable work is a drawing from AMO’s Green Deal research project (2020), depicting a split figure that symbolizes the contemporary Dutch farmer as a “nature manager,” a professional balancing agricultural production with ecological responsibility. The project calls for revising the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy to foster more sustainable practices.
Across disciplines such as astronomy, religion, and history, data visualization has long shaped our understanding of the world, bridging facts and interpretation. Diagrams have helped to organize knowledge, reveal hidden connections, and make complex ideas visible. Among the works presented in the Truth section is Yang Hui’s Triangle, the earliest depiction of Pascal’s triangle (1654), a triangular array of binomial coefficients. First published in China in Yang Hui’s Detailed Analysis of the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art (1261), it remains one of the most significant visualizations of mathematical principles in Chinese history.
Over the past two centuries, graphic systems have been used to visualize markets, anticipate trends, and illustrate the flow of capital. By tracking prices, wages, debt, inflation, or economic trends, diagrams can transform volatility into legible patterns that can be interpreted, debated, and acted upon. These practices are investigated in the Value section, where line graphs, area charts, and bar charts examine how worth is constructed, projected, and questioned. A notable historical example is a group of statistical plates published in Cram’s Unrivaled Family Atlas of the World (1889) by American cartographer George F. Cram. Through comparative visualizations of production, public debt, wealth, population growth, territorial size, commerce, and military strength—applied to both the United States and world nations—the atlas transforms economic and geopolitical data into a persuasive visual narrative, revealing how diagrams can shape perceptions of national power and value.
A diagram can be roughly described as an instrument for envisioning information to reason about, communicate, and document, so that it appears as a neutral and objective representation. The exhibition explores the diagram as an agent of meaning-making that actively shapes and influences human thought and life, and that can clarify or distort information depending on the data it presents. Today, more than ever, looking retrospectively at the role of diagrams over time helps us question their sources, authorship, and purpose, and critically reconstruct their context.
