Patrik Schumacher Argues for Parametricism as Architecture's Future Unified Style

8/20/14, 3:42 PM Patrik Schumacher on parametricism - 'Let the style wars begin' | The Critics | Architects Journal
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Patrik Schumacher on parametricism - 'Let the style wars begin'
6 May, 2010 | By Patrik Schumacher
In an exclusive text for the AJ, Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects argues that the unied style of architecture for the 21st
century will be parametricism
In my Parametricist Manifesto of 2008, I rst communicated that a new, profound style has been maturing within the avant-garde
segment of architecture during the last 10 years. The term parametricism has since been gathering momentum within architectural
discourse and its critical questioning has strengthened it. So far, knowledge of the new style has remained largely conned within
architecture, but I suspect news will spread quickly once it is picked up by the mass media. Outside architectural circles, style is
virtually the only category through which architecture is observed and recognised. A named style needs to be put forward in order to
stake its claim to act in the name of architecture.
The concept of style deserves to be defended
The concept of style has for a long time beenlosing traction within architectural discourse. To let this concept wither away would
onlyimpoverish the discourse, and a powerful asset for communicating architecture to societywould be lost. However, the resuscitation of
this drained and battered concept requires conceptual reconstruction in terms that are intellectually credible today.
What stands in the way of this is thetendency to regard style as merely a matter of appearance, as well as the related tendency toconfuse
styles with supercial, short-lived fashions. Although aesthetic appearancematters enormously in architecture and design, neither
architecture nor its styles canbe reduced to mere matters of appearance. Neither must the phenomenon of styles beassimilated to the
phenomenon of fashion.
The concept of style must therefore besharply distinguished and cleansed of these trivialising and distracting connotations. It denotes the
unity of the difference between the architectural epochs of gothic, renaissance, baroque, classicism, historicism and modernism.The
historical self-consciousness of architecture demands the revitalisation of theconcept of style as a profound historical phenomenon that
can be projected into thefuture. For this purpose I have proposed that architectural styles are best understood asdesign-research
programmes, conceived in analogy to the way paradigms frame scientic research programmes.
A new style in architecture and design isakin to a new paradigm in science; it redenes the fundamental categories, purposes and methods
of a coherent collective endeavour. Innovation in architecture proceeds via the progression of styles so understood. This implies the
alternation between periods of cumulative advancement within a style, and revolutionary periods of transition between styles. Styles
represent long, sustained cycles of innovation, gathering design-research efforts into a collective movement so that individual efforts are
mutually relevant,spurning and enhancing.
Parametricism offers a credible, sustainable answer to the crisis of modernism that resulted in 25 years of stylistic
searching
From the inside, within architecture, the identication of parametricism demarcates and further galvanises a maturing avant-garde
movement, and thus might serve to accelerate its progress and potential hegemony as acollective research and development effort. As a
piece of retrospective description andinterpretation, the announcement of parametricism seems justied after 10 years of consistent,
cumulative design research. Prospectively, the announcement of the style should further consolidate the attained achievements and
prepare the transition from avant-garde to mainstream hegemony. Parametricism nally offers a credible, sustainable answer to the
drawn-out crisis of modernism that resulted in 25 years of stylistic searching.
Parametricism is the great new style after modernism
Post-modernism and deconstructivism were mere transitional episodes, similar to art nouveau and expressionism as transitions from
historicism to modernism. The distinction of epochal styles from transitional styles is important. In a period of transition there might
emerge a rapid succession of styles, or even a plurality of simultaneous, competing styles. The crisis and demise of modernism lead to a
deep and protracted transitional period, but there is no reason to believe that this pluralism cannot be overcome by the hegemony of a
new unied style. The potential for such a unication is indeed what we are witnessing.
Beyond the modernistparadigm of separationand repetition
The modernist order of separation and repetition is being supplanted by the parametricist order of continuous differentiation and intensive
correlation. Within the broad new paradigm of parametricism, many subsidiary styles might be expected to enrich and progress the
coming epoch of parametricism.
Modernisms crisis does not mean an end to unied styles
Modernisms crisis and its architectural aftermath has led many critics to believe we can no longer be expected to forge a unied style.
Did the profound developmental role of styles in the history of architecture, as evidenced in the gothic-renaissance baroquehistoricism-
modernism sequence, come to an end? Did history come to an end? Or did it ragment into criss-crossing and contradictory trajectories?
Are we to celebrate this fragmentation of efforts under the slogan of pluralism?
Architecture today is world architecture
Every architectural project is immediately exposed and assessed in comparison to all other projects. Global convergences are possible.
This does not mean homogenisation and monotony. It merely implies a consistency of principles,ambitions and values to build upon so
that different efforts add up, are relevant to each other and compete constructively with each other, to establish the conditions for
progress rather than pursuing contradictory efforts that battle over fundamentals. This is the idea of a unied style; initially as a unied
avant-garde design-research programme, and eventually as a unied system of principles, ambitions and values that constitute global best
practice.
The new generation
The consistency of the style as a collective design-research programme depends upon the unfailing adherence to the strictures and
impositions of parametricism. The good news is that a whole generation of young architects is already adhering to this.
Many theorists like Charles Jencks, for example presume that the demise of modernism ushered in an era of stylistic pluralism.
Accordingly, the search for a new, unied style is seen as an anachronism. Any style today so it seems can only be one among many
other simultaneously operatingstyles, thus adding one more voice to the prevailing cacophony of voices. The idea of a pluralism of styles
is just one symptom of the more general trivialisation and denigration of the concept of style. I repudiate the complacent acceptance (and
even celebration) of the apparent pluralism of styles as a supposed sign of our times. A unied style has many advantages over a
condition of stylistic fragmentation. Parametricism aims for hegemony and combats all other styles.
Parametricisms crucial ability to set up continuities and correspondences across diverse and distant elements relies on its principles
holding uninterrupted sway. The admixture of a post-modernist, deconstructivist or minimalist design can only disrupt the penetrating
and far-reaching parametricist continuity. The reverse does not hold, because there is no equivalent degree of continuity in post-
modernist, deconstructivist or minimalist urbanism.In fact, parametricism can take up vernacular, classical, modernist, post-modernist,
deconstructivist and minimalist urban conditions, and forge a new network of afliations and continuities between and beyond any
number of urban fragments and conditions.
Preparing for the style war
What are the current styles that must be combated by parametricism? Is there really still some kind of stylistic pluralism, as posited by
Jencks? In fact, post-modernism has disappeared, and the contributions and advances of deconstructivism have been incorporated within
parametricism. The mainstream has, in fact, returned to a form of pragmatic modernism with a slightly enriched palette; a form of
eclecticism mixing and matching elements from all modernisms subsidiary styles. The inability of post-modernism and deconstructivism
to formulate a new viable paradigm led to the return of modernism in the guise of minimalism as the only consistent, ideologically
stringent style that confronts parametricism today. The primary confrontation in the struggle for stylistic hegemony is thus between
parametricism and minimalism.
Parametricism claims universal validity.
It cannot be dismissed as eccentric signature work that only ts high-brow cultural icons. Parametricism is able to deliver all the
components for a high-performance contemporary life process. All moments of contemporary life become uniquely individuated within a
continuous, ordered texture.
The latest built works from Zaha Hadid Architects are much more than experimental manifesto projects; they succeed as
highperformance projects in the real world. The Nordpark Cable Railway stations in Innsbruck are a good example. No other style could
have achieved this coincidence of adaptive variation to the different site conditions with genotypical coherence across those phenotypical
variants. Parametricism is ready to go mainstream. The style war has begun.
Patrik Schumacher is a partner at Zaha Hadid Architects
What is parametricism?
Parametricism implies that all architectural elements and complexes are parametrically malleable. This implies a fundamental
ontological shift within the basic, constituent elements of architecture. Instead of classical and modern reliance on rigid geometrical
gures rectangles, cubes, cylinders, pyramids and spheres the new primitives of parametricism are animate geometrical entities
splines, nurbs and subdivs. These are fundamental geometrical building blocks for dynamical systems like hair, cloth, blobs and
metaballs that react to attractors and can be made to resonate with each other via scripts.
Parametricism aims to organise and articulate the increasing diversity and complexity of social institutions and life processes within the
most advanced centre of post-Fordist network society. It aims to establish a complex variegated spatial order, using scripting to
differentiate and correlate all elements and subsystems of a design. The goal is to intensify the internal interdependencies within an
architectural design, as well as the external afliations and continuities within complex, urban contexts.
The avoidance of parametricist taboos and adherence to the dogmas delivers complex order for complex social institutions.
Negative principles (taboos)
Avoid rigid forms (lack of malleability)
Avoid simple repetition (lack of variety)
Avoid collage of isolated, unrelated elements (lack of order)
Avoid rigid functional stereotypes
Avoid segregative functional zoning
Positive principles (dogmas)
All forms must be soft
All systems must be differentiated (gradients) and interdependent (correlations)
All functions are parametric activity scenarios
All activities communicate with each other
The parametricist vanguard: educational institutes across the globe
UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
UCLAs department of architecture and urban design is the US headquarters of parametricist Greg Lynn. The inventor of blob
architecture claims to have developed a new architectural aesthetic via a fresh design sensibility, formed by rhythmic patterns created by
the possibilities of innitesimal geometric calculations. www.aud.ucla.edu
Architectural Association (AA), London
The AAs Design Research Laboratory (DRL) was founded in 1998 by AA director Brett Steele and Patrik Schumacher (AJ 21.02.08).
The DRL is dedicated to exploring the possibilities of todays highly distributed digital design networks and tools. Its also known as
Zaha boot camp because of its connection with the founder of parametric urbanism, Zaha Hadid, who often recruits from the DRL.
www.aaschool.ac.uk/aadrl
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC), USA
SCI-Arc is a centre of innovation established to transform technological and cultural paradigms into the practice of architecture. A
selection of SCI-Arc research projects were shown earlier this year at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, during an exhibition
called Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum. Artists, architects and designers were invited to imagine the
interventions they would make in Frank Lloyd Wrights spiralling rotunda. www.sciarc.eduSerena Valietti
Readers' comments (35)
Anonymous | 6-May-2010 6:01 pm
and what will be the death of parametricism?:
superlatives and absolutes
oh, and materials scarcity.
What is it about Germans always trying to start the war? Albeit, this time, relatively harmless, let the style just evolve by itself
and the time will tell if parametricism has a long term future. You can't force construction industry into this just like that, it will
take a long time. I personally think that it is a scary prospect of the industry being hijacked by a bunch of Rhino scripto-nerds
who are probably can't draw simple water proong detail.
Michael Badu | 6-May-2010 8:30 pm
I was going to say that this was a pretty lucid defense of the pretty much indefensible, but the end of the article seemed to trail off
a bit. Is it really sensible to say that only parametricism could have produced workable solutions to the Nordpark project?
I think that there are a number of problems with the premise of this article. Patrik seems to be suggesting that Modernism was a
style that we got bored of when in fact it was a style whose limitations began to be understood (cold bridging, leaky rooves,
aesthetic poverty in the eyes of lay-people. Modernism was also not really a style; it was an attempt to get to grips with the
technological and economic fall out from the industrial revolution. If Parametircsm is a 'proper' (epochal in Patrik's words) style
rather than a transitional one (like PoMo or Decon) then it has to be borne of a similar urgent necessity to the one that gave rise to
Modernism in my humble opinion. Now I'm no tree hugging eco-warrior, but global warming,as well as the
scarcity of fuel and materials is the only 'thing' going in my opinion that compares, in terms of urgency and universality, to the
industrial revolution which spawned Modernsim (which is neat because the Industrial Revolution and the Sustainability question
are two sides of a very big coin). If we accept that this is indeed the case, then we have to look at the likes of BedZED, the works
of people like Baumschlager Eberle, Konrad Frey, The Vales and other Sustainability pioneers as the real harbingers of an
epochal style. Parametricsm then turns out to be just another style (and I really like the Nordpark scheme actually) best suited to
the high end 'Formula 1' type of market. In fact I think that Zaha Hadid should design the next F1 racing venue if they haven't
done so already because that seems to me to be a magnicent t
so, oors are still at, doors are still rectangular w/knobs to open/close, walls still separate spaces, stairs/ramps/elevators/etc. still
the ways you get around in "parametric" constructions, toilets/urinals/bidets/sinks are stilll...well, you get the idea.
Peter Chandler | 7-May-2010 11:36 am
Will this have been possible without the number crunching power of computers and design software, which is the womb that
nurtured this child. It does not respond to any of our pressing realities so therefore will never grow up to be any thing further than
fashionable.
Daniel Morales | 7-May-2010 2:20 pm
The idea that the concept of "style" needs to be re-habilitated while conceding that it's the primary way the public understands
architecture underlines the main problem within the profession. They could care less about the public.
This article is the most conservative architectural treatis I've recently read in that all the modernist conventions are being upheld.
The false dichotomy of either historicism or modernism blows right over the fact that modernism as a style (broadly speaking) is
as historicist as any other.
This guy's attempt to institutionalise whatever work his rm does as the go to style of today is as transparent as the false
intellectualism of the early modernists. We are modern, eclectic people, and as such ought to to whatever we feel like. If only
architects as professionals would get over their fear of being tradespeople, we might actually produce buildings people care
about. It's no wonder European cities have been frozen in time, it's the public's way of acknowledging we can't do anything better.
Look back at most architectural commentary of the last 300 years, and the evolution of whatever style was in vogue was always
refered to as modern. To me, it's just another used car salesman pitch.
Style is a relatively recent and historical term - it was not, for instance, something that was self-applied by practitioners of
classical or baroque architecture as noted above.
There's no point in claiming a style of today for any reason other than glory or megalomania.
Architects should simply work in whatever manner is suitable for the project. Historians can worry about style.
John Smith | 9-May-2010 8:10 pm
Take a chill pill mate.
Parametricsm is a style that even describing it as the style offering diversity and complexity in fact lacks the DIVERSITY. All
projects look the same, only architects between themselves could see slightly noticeable differences and appreciate the sexy ow
of the curve, or if it was done with nurbs or subdiv. So what? It does not solve any current problems, but provides a dream for the
current graduates of a giant 3D printer (that is actually already exists). And by the way Patrick as soon as it is considered a style -
it becomes mainstream and you loose your avant-guard status. It is mainstream already who wants the world lled with Zaha
Hadid Architects clones?
And as soon as there was a mention of negative and positive principles seemed like a religious sect of Parametricsm. Scary!
Thierry BIDET | 11-May-2010 3:17 pm
Dear Patrik Schumacher,
"Let the style war begin" seems either offensive to the architects' community or like an impatient attempt to reach "mainstream
hegemony" to use your own words.
Twitter is being recognised as a universal tool of communication because everybody can use it after watching a one minute clip. I
am not sure, at the time to write this article, that you gave the chance to every architects and designers to understand how they
can design in the so-called parametric style.
Zaha Hadid herself has been using a rich palette of architectural vocabularies all along her career, so why should we restrain
ourselves to one style?
As historians will notice, the Nordpark Cable Railway combines two very distinctive architectural families, between the aerial
part and what happens on the ground. It is a transitional project in term of styles.
Sincerely,
Thierry Bidet
David Hamilton | 12-May-2010 1:43 pm
Hegemony of a new unied style, hegemony of a new unied style?-- We don't need no stinkin' hegemony of a new unied
style...
In our fragmented, all opinions heard society-- Why or how will a new dominant style prevail?...
Non-sense or wishful thinking for some...
Cheeky boogers, the photos just looks like my rst year post grad work at the Bartlett, circa 1996. I was really taking the mickey
when I did it. have you not read Marcos Novak, sir you are way behind the times.
Paramtrics is that not a description for computer modelling. it is not actually a style. geeez
eng gram | 14-May-2010 1:47 pm
We worked on one of Patriks blobs a few years ago. The problem was they spent the whole time tweaking isocurves and trying
to work out how this weird shape actually functioned as a proper building. It was a humbling moment when the lead architect
held up his hands and admitted that after 6 months they still hadnt worked out how to get into it!
For more comments on Patrik's article see our eng-gram blog
Maurice Clarke | 17-May-2010 9:51 am
Meanwhile, out in the real world, none of my clients could afford the time, energy or cost of a parametric blob tacked on to the
side of their house, or stuck in a suburban street... and the planners would probably not like it either.
But seriously, there are more important things than architectural 'style'. For example, saving the earth by designing buildings
which use minimal energy in construction and use. This will eventually lead to a 'style' which will achieve hegemony.
Patrik Schumacher | 17-May-2010 10:46 pm
nice to see that my statements elicited some comments ... some of them deserve a response. I start with Maurice Clarke: the
capacity to design a suburban extension for a small budget is not the test-case to decide on the power and pertinence of a
contemporary style. A more interesting test case: a large mixed-use complex within a complex urban site, or a new urban sub-
centre. In fact the larger and the more complex the design task the more evident and compelling is parametricisms superiority in
comparison with modernism/minimalism or classicism. Thats why we are winning these kinds of projects.
Your point about minimal energy has a point. In fact parametricism is conceptually geared to take up the ecological agenda. Both
in terms of techniques and in terms of sensibility parametricist architecture is eager and able to elaborate adaptive, differentiated
responses to the divers environmental parameters, e.g. the building skin is being modulated according to environmental data, i.e.
these data are being used as direct input into a script differentiating sunshading elements. (ZHA has been able make this kind of
argument effectively and won two competitions for energy research centres.) This answers also Peter Chandlers point about
meeting pressing realities. This is also Michael Badus point. I agree with him that to make the claim that an epochal style is in
the making requires me to dene the challenge that compares, in terms of urgency and universality, to the industrial revolution
which spawned Modernsim. However, energy preservation - and the ecological challenge in general - is only one of many factors.
It cannot dene the new era. What justies and demands a new style is the socio-economic restructuring that has been going on
for the last 35 years. The stable, homogenized society of fordist mass production has given way to the dynamic, multi-cultual
network society of today. (Contributing factors: globalisation, micro-electronic revolution a.o). The organisational and
communicative capacity of the promoted style and its design repertoire is key. (Environmentally motivated envelope
differentiation will also serve to orient users within a lawfully differentiated environment.)
Thiery Bidets point about Zahas rich palette of architectural vocabularies is appreciated. However, parametricism continues the
historical trajectory of repertoire expansion. Modernisms repertoire and thus its versatility of formulating pertinent responses to
the expanded array of design tasks was hugely increased in comparison with classicism. Parametricism increases this versatility
once more. At the same time the new ability to set up associations implies that order and legibility can be maintained and
enhanced. That the mastery of the new tools and techniques must be as easy as using twitter should not be expected.
Its important to be clear that the whole point of positing parametricism as style is to emphasise that the mere acquisition of new
tools to play with is no longer the point. The style offers a new approach to architecture on the basis of advanced computational
design tools and techniques. However, as a style parametricism involves much more than the mere employment of certain tools
and techniques. As a style parametricism is marked by its aims, ambitions, methodological principles, and evaluative criteria, as
well as by its characteristic formal repertoire.
Its true that the concept of style (the way we understand it now) emerged only in the 19th century. But it convinced by making
sense of the earlier styles of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque. And the concept soon led to the inevitable question formulated in
the middle of the 19th century: In which style should we build? This question set up the quest to develop a modern architectural
style. This question is still (once more) relevant. The attitude We are modern, eclectic people, and as such ought to do whatever
we feel like is just pure self-indulgence. Any serious professional has to give a principled account of his/her values and methods.
Somebody said: Architects should simply work in whatever manner is suitable for the project. Historians can worry about style.
This kind pragmatic attitude is quite common. It might be okey for mainstream architects, to the extent to which they can rely on
the availability of viable best practice recipes. This task of architecture as discipline is to innovate this best practice repertoire in
line with general historical challenges. Ad hoc pragmatism is not enough to achieve this. For this an avant-garde is required that
elaborates new principles via the combination of experimentation and theoretical reection. Here the point is to formulate a new
approach, new viable concepts, values, methods, criteria etc. When modernism went into crisis what was until then considered
suitable for the project was bankrupt. The rst reaction was to seek relief in prior architectural history. ... The search for new
principles started. I think only recently in the last 10 years a new set of principles (concepts, values, methods, criteria etc.)
have matured to the point of being able to convince more and more architects and clients.
Somebody said: as soon as it is considered a style - it becomes mainstream and you loose your avant-garde status. Thats great.
To win over the mainstream is the ambition of every serious avant-garde movement. Without a broad following the avant-garde
turns out not to be an avant-garde at all. Rareed exclusivity is not at all what we want. We want the company of lots of
Tweet Tweet 6
collaborators and competitors. This is happening: Most young architects I meet want to participate in this collective adventure
that is bound to change the urban physiognomy of this planet in the 21st century just as modernism did in the last century.
John Bassi | 18-May-2010 0:53 am
It won't last long, we are now in age of frugality, hair shirts and chastity belts.
Soupdragon | 18-May-2010 1:55 pm
How does avoiding segregative functional zoning work with the double loaded corridor at Evelyn Grace Academy? Especially
when the architect has segregated one building into three seperate schools each with their own entrance.
Wow, this guy's seriously out of touch. Reminds me of the medieval priest hood that prefered to keep the "masses" ignorant while
speaking latin simply to keep the "authority" in their hands. When you ask simple question you get declarative sentences like
"This task of architecture as discipline is to innovate this best practice repertoire in line with general historical challenges."
I think Zahahadid's work is interesting, but this ponticating and telling other's their's is the only legitimate perspective while
dodging questions... Good luck in you're quest of telling everyone else how to think but I think your "methodological principles,
evaluative criteria, and characteristic formal repertoire" are all wrong.
"Rareed exclusivity is not at all what we want"
You want more???
Patrik Schumacher | 18-May-2010 11:12 pm
Well, thanks Daniel that you consider our work intetresting. If I thought another perspective was more pertinent and promising I
would shift perspective. How about you? Do you have convictions about what constitutes a meaningful for contemporary
architecture? Or are you unsure? (Do whatever we feel like??? What then? Or what people want??? What do they want?) Do you
have the opportunity to work according to your own convictions - if you have convictions? Are you able and willing to state the
principles that underly your work? Could these just be valid for you? Who is Daniel Morales to have principles all for himself?
Which client should by into Daniel Morales' personal perspective???
You still can't or won't answer any of my substantive points. First, you hide behind a wall of archispeak, next you devolve into a
bunch of psychobable. It's amazing a simpleton like me could so easily get under your skin, so much for your convictions. While
I think you're work is interesting (not another brain dead glass box), I think it's ugly, and no amount of words will change that.
You should check out Gaudi, now that guy knew his curves. By the way, it's just an opinion, not personal. As long as someone is
buying what you're selling, onward and forward!
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8/20/14, 3:42 PM Patrik Schumacher on parametricism - 'Let the style wars begin' | The Critics | Architects Journal

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