You studied philosophy and mathematics before architecture. Was it the mathematics that initially drew you to the work of Zaha Hadid?
What drew me to Zaha Hadid was the dynamism, complexity and elegance of her geometry, and indeed the mathematical precision of her work.
Can you remember your first meeting with Zaha? What were your impressions?
I discovered and studied her work in 1985 as a student in Stuttgart, and first encountered Zaha Hadid in person in 1988 at a Deconstructivism symposium at London’s Tate Gallery. I was struck by her no-nonsense, straightforward, honest presentation of her ideas and work, compared with other rather pompous and self-conscious presentations. Zaha was relaxed and confident, I guess well aware that her work was much more compelling than that of the other architects. I joined her studio that same year, whilst I was still a student.
Would I be right in thinking that you brought parametrics to the practice?
Yes, that’s correct, but Zaha’s work already exhibited all of the essential features of parametricism – dynamic curvature, complexity of integrative layering etc. – albeit created through elaborate hand drafting and painting. In my book Digital Hadid I trace our development from an analogue to a digital methodology and how Zaha’s work acted an inspiration and challenge for developing digital design techniques.
How did your working relationship develop into a partnership? How would you say your respective qualities interact? What do each of you bring to the work?
That’s a difficult question, perhaps best answered by a third party observer. When I started working with her it was a very small studio: only five people. Soon after, Zaha’s primary design collaborator resigned, so I was suddenly challenged to step up and take a bigger role. My first project was the Vitra Fire station, which became Zaha’s first significant built work. We were still working by hand then and I worked out the spatially curved geometry via orthographic projection. At the same time we were working on many competitions, for which we started introducing computers as design and visualisation aids, first as 3D sketching tools and then later as planning and drafting tools. We also started teaching together, at Columbia in 1993 and Harvard in 1994. It’s there we expanded our experimentation with computational techniques. This finally took off when I started teaching at the AA, and founded the Design Research Laboratory.
It’s very hard to separate our roles as we work closely together and discuss everything. But, if I had to, I would say Zaha has always been the engine and energy behind the drive to originality and perfection, while my role has been to discipline and channel this creative power. Now, there are many colleagues equally indispensable to the overall creative force and success of the firm.
Patrik Schumacher, is partner at Zaha Hadid Architects and founding director at the AA Design Research Lab. He joined Zaha Hadid in 1988.
Patrik Schumacher studied philosophy and architecture in Bonn, London and Stuttgart, where he received his Diploma in architecture in 1990. In 1999 he completed his PHD at the Institute for Cultural Science, Klagenfurt University.
Schumacher has been teaching at various architectural schools in Britain, Continental Europe and the USA since 1992 and a co-director of the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London since 1996. Currently he is a tenured Professor at Innsbruck University and his contribution to the discourse of contemporary architecture is also evident in his published works.
patrikschumacher.com
Why do you think some people still have trouble accepting your work?
Our work is often misunderstood as self-indulgent, artistic exuberance, aiming for the spectacle of iconic architecture. That’s not how we see it. What critics don’t understand is that an architecture that’s rigorously developed on the basis of radically new, innovative principles becomes conspicuous by default rather than intention, and that urban and architectural complexity are not ends in themselves but are called for by the new societal complexity of contemporary post-fordist network society.
Looking back in the future, what do you think you would say the legacy of the Zaha Hadid Architects has been?
Zaha Hadid Architects is now a firm of about 350 architects taking on all building types and operating across all continents. Yet we remain absolutely consistent in our commitment to parametricism as the only truly new, viable and indeed superior way forward for architecture, urbanism and all the other design disciplines that give our man-made world its spatial order and visual, tactile shape. My hope is that our work spurs on the movement of parametricism to complete the move from avant-garde to mainstream and to establish it as truly an epochal style of global best practice, one that can impact and transform the built environment in the way modernism did in the 20th century. So I hope that a different, much richer, organic and nature-like built environment will be our legacy, a built environment that is both more complex and more legible and far less monotonous and disorienting than many placeless and ugly cityscapes today. I guess this is a lot to hope for.
PRODUCT GROUP
MANUFACTURER
New and existing Tumblr users can connect with uncube and share our visual diary.
Uncube is brandnew and wants to look good.
For best performance please update your browser.
Mozilla Firefox,
Internet Explorer 10 (or higher),
Safari,
Chrome,
Opera