Patrik Schumacher Principal Dr Phil, Dipl Ing, ARB, RIBA
Profile
Patrik Schumacher is principal of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and Chairman for life of the Employee Benefit Trust owning ZHA. He is leading the firm since Zaha Hadid’s passing in March 2016. He joined Zaha Hadid in 1988 and was seminal in developing Zaha Hadid Architects to become a 500 strong global architecture and design brand.
Education & Teaching
Patrik Schumacher studied philosophy, mathematics and architecture in Bonn, Stuttgart and London. He received his Diploma in architecture in 1990. He has been a ZHA partner since 2003 and a co-author on all projects. In 2010 Patrik Schumacher won the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture together with Zaha Hadid. He is an academician of the Berlin Academy of Arts since 2014. Patrik Schumacher is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects as well as an Executive Member of the Architectural Society of China.
In 1996, together with Brett Steele, he founded the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association in London where he continues to teach. From 2000 to 2015 he co-taught a regular Masterclass with Zaha Hadid at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna where he continues to lead a PhD research group. He has been a guest professor at Harvard’s GSD in 2013 and 2018. Since 2019 he acts as PhD supervisor at Tongji University’s International PhD programme in Shanghai.
In 1999 Patrik Schumacher completed his PHD at the Institute for Cultural Science, Klagenfurt University. He also holds an honorary doctorate as Doctor of Social Science honoris causa from La Universidad Franscisco Marroquin.
Patrik Schumacher is lecturing worldwide and over the last 20 years he has contributed over 120 articles to architectural journals and anthologies. In 2003 he published the book Digital Hadid – Landscapes in Motion. In 2007 he coined the phrase Parametricism and has since published a series of manifestos promoting Parametricism as the new epochal style for the 21st century. In 2010/2012 he published his two-volume theoretical opus magnum “The Autopoiesis of Architecture”. In 2015 he guest-edited the magazine AD – Parametricism 2.0 – setting architecture’s agenda for the 21st Century with a new emphasis on the societal relevance of parametricism.
Patrik Schumacher is widely recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders within the fields of architecture, urbanism and design. His research interest focusses on designing and simulating real and virtual environments (and their fusion) with the goal to increase their power to engender and facilitate productive communicative interactions. The respective research agendas are ‘Agent-based Parametric Semiology’ and ‘Cyber-Urban Integration’. Accordingly he is lecturing on the design opportunities and challenges posed by the advent of cyber-space and the collective project of the metaverse.
As Principal of ZHA, Patrik is the designer of the studio’s seminal projects worldwide including the new Beijing Daxing international airport, Leeza SOHO tower in Beijing and BEEAH Headquarters in the UAE. Working with Zaha Hadid, Patrik co-authored the designs of all ZHA’s renowned projects including MAXXI Museum Rome, Dongdaemun Design Plaza Seoul, the London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre, and the One Thousand Museum residential tower in Miami.
