Patrick Schumacher: Parametricism and the Autopoiesis of Architecture

September 13, 2010 7:30PM

SCI-Arc

Graduation Pavilion

Patrick Schumacher: Parametricism and the Autopoiesis of Architecture

Intro by Eric Owen Moss

Schumacher studied philosophy and architecture in Bonn, London, and Stuttgart, where he received his Diploma in architecture in 1990. In 1999 he completed his Ph.D. at the Institute for Cultural Science, Klagenfurt University. In 1996 he founded the Design Research Laboratory with Brett Steele, at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he continues to serve as one of its co-directors. Since 2004 Schumacher has been a tenured Professor at the Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck University. Currently he is also a guest professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. His extensive theoretical writings are available at www.patrikschumacher.com. 

The lecture will present the case for Parametricism as a new unified, epochal style for the 21st century. The reach of Parametricism is global, and its scope is universal, including urbanism, architecture, interior design, as well as furniture and product design. The discussion of Parametricism will be conceptually framed within the theory of architectural autopoiesis, which analyses architecture as a self-referentially closed system of communications, taking exclusive and universal responsibility for the innovation of the built environment within society.

During the last 30 years, society radically transformed into what one might call a post-Fordist network society. The attendant crisis of modernism engendered a period of radical critique, experimentation, and theoretical confusion. Only recently, in the new millenium, has a new avant-garde movement gathered sufficient strength, coherence and confidence to establish a new global paradigm after modernism. Against this horizon, Parametricism will be defined operationally, both positively and negatively, via its functional and formal heuristics. The arguments will be illustrated and underpinned by recent work from Zaha Hadid Architects and from the AA Design Research Lab.