Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation: The Breakthroughs and Predicaments of Postmodern Design from a Deleuzian Perspective

Abstract

Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concepts of territorialisation, deterritorialisation, and reterritorialisation, this article examines how postmodern design challenged modernist norms and the predicaments that emerged from this process. It conceptualises the institutionalisation of modernism as a relatively stable order structured by functionalism, standardisation, and formal purity, and analyses how postmodern design unsettled this order through historical quotation, symbolic collage, and the recombination of heterogeneous elements. The study argues that postmodern design broadened the possibilities for expressing emotion, historical memory, and cultural identity. Yet, through dissemination and commercialisation, these forms of difference were transformed into marketable styles and markers of identity, resulting in the stylisation of design language, the superficial treatment of cultural meaning, and the blurring of evaluative boundaries. Postmodern design did not simply replace modernism; rather, it developed through the continuing interplay between deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation.