Parametricism as Style — Parametricist Manifesto

Author: Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects)
Year: 2008 (presented at the Dark Side Club, 11th Architecture Biennale, Venice; published 2020)
Source type: article (manifesto)
Raw file: raw/articles/schumacher-2008-parametricism-as-style-1.md

Summary

Schumacher's manifesto proclaims "parametricism" — an architecture based on parametric design systems and "continuous differentiation" — as "the great new style after modernism," retooling the discipline "to the socio-economic era of post-fordism." Against the "mass society" of a single consumption standard stands "the heterogenous society of the multitude." The task is "organising and articulating the increased complexity of post-fordist society" through "complex, polycentric urban and architectural fields which are densely layered and continuously differentiated." It offers heuristics (negative taboos, positive techniques) and five agendas (inter-articulation of sub-systems, parametric accentuation, figuration, responsiveness, urbanism).

Key Claims

• Parametricism as the new style: "Contemporary avant-garde architecture is addressing the demand for an increased level of articulated complexity by means of retooling its methods on the basis of parametric design systems"; "Parametricism is the great new style after modernism. Postmodernism and Deconstructivism have been transitional episodes." "Styles are design research programmes."
• Post-Fordism and the multitude: adaptation to "the socio-economic era of post-fordism"; "The mass society that was characterized by a single, nearly universal consumption standard has evolved into the heterogenous society of the multitude."
• Continuous differentiation and fields: "systematic, adaptive variation, continuous differentiation ... dynamic, parametric figuration"; "Parametricism differentiates fields ... We might think of swarms of buildings that drift across the landscape"; "no platonic, discrete figures with sharp outlines," "The contemporary condition of arriving in a metropolis for the first time, without prior hotel arrangements, without a map."
• Heuristics: negative: "avoid familiar typologies, avoid platonic/hermetic objects, avoid clear-cut zones/territories, avoid repetition, avoid straight lines, avoid right angles, avoid corners ... do not add or subtract without elaborate interarticulations"; positive: "interarticulate, hybridize, morph, deterritorialize, deform, iterate, use splines, nurbs, generative components, script rather than model."
• Five agendas: inter-articulation of sub-systems; parametric accentuation ('deviation amplification'); parametric figuration (Gestalt-sensitive/gestalt-catastrophes); parametric responsiveness (kinetic, real-time adaptation); parametric urbanism.
• The claim of hegemony: parametricism "has achieved pervasive hegemony within the contemporary architectural avant-garde"; its success requires mastering parametric techniques; "aims for a maximal emphasis on conspicuous differentiation."

Connections

Concepts: Parametricism · Entrepreneur of Self · Neoliberal Metropolis · Discrete
Authors: Patrik Schumacher & Christian Rogner · Douglas Spencer
Debates: (parametricism & post-Fordism)
Related source notes: After Ford (Schumacher & Rogner) · Parametricism Is the Architecture "of Neoliberalism Itself" (Hopkins)

Direct Quotes

"Parametricism is the great new style after modernism."

"Architecture finds itself at the mid-point of an ongoing cycle of innovative adaptation – retooling the discipline and adapting the architectural and urban environment to the socio-economic era of post-fordism."

"The task is to develop an architectural and urban repertoire that is geared up to create complex, polycentric urban and architectural fields which are densely layered and continuously differentiated."

"Avoid repetition, avoid straight lines, avoid right angles, avoid corners" (negative heuristics).

Open Questions

• Does parametricism genuinely "articulate the complexity" of post-Fordist society, or does its "conspicuous differentiation" and field-logic serve the flexible, entrepreneurial subject and financial capital that Spencer and Hopkins critique?