Category: Patrik Schumacher Series

ana018: Startup Cities with Adam Hengels and Patrik Schumacher

On January 15th, 2018, Startup Cities hosted a discussion panel featuring Adam Hengels, founder of Market Urbanism, and Patrik Schumacher, Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects. Hosted by Peter Ryan, Founder of Startup Cities.

This episode features the full audio recording of this event, plus Anarchitecture Podcast’s pre-game and post-game discussion.

Use hashtag #ana018 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes at https://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana018.

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ana012: Patrik Schumacher (4 of 4) | Post-Interview Commentary

Tim and Joe review Anarchitecture’s interview with Patrik Schumacher, Director of Zaha Hadid Architects (Episode #ana011), to clarify and highlight key points. We elaborate on topics including historical architectural styles, computer-generated design, parametric urbanism, and the challenges of promoting radical ideas.

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ana011: Patrik Schumacher (3 of 4) | The Interview

Tim interviews Patrik Schumacher, Director of Zaha Hadid Architects, at the Zaha Hadid Design Gallery in London. Topics include:

  • Architectural theory
  • The style of parametricism
  • Patrik’s journey from Marxism to anarcho-capitalism
  • Rule-based order through bottom-up convergences
  • How do we communicate radical ideas, whether architectural or political?
  • Is there value in shock value?
  • What is the role and limits of urban planning?
  • Parametric urbanism
  • The future of market-based urban order

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ana010: Patrik Schumacher (2 of 4) | Media Maelstrom

The second of four episodes in our series about Patrik Schumacher, Director of Zaha Hadid Architects. Tim and Joe review and critique the media responses to Patrik’s controversial presentation about housing at the World Architecture Festival in November 2016.

Two of these articles, by the Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright and architectural writer Phineas Harper, are presented for extended criticism.

We had a little too much fun with this one.

Topics include:

  • Responses from London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Zaha Hadid Architects, protestors, and supporters (sort of)
  • Extended critique of Oliver Wainwright’s article in The Guardian:
    • Did Zaha Hadid “dismiss” Patrik’s theoretical work in parametricism?
    • Gurgaon – a mostly private city in India
    • Are “thought experiments” valid and meaningful?
    • The housing crisis can be explained in three words: Great Crested Newts
    • Noam Chomsky on anarcho-capitalism
    • A new off-Broadway play, “Syndicalism in One Act”
  • Extended critique of Phineas Harper’s article in Dezeen:
    • What social justice warriors and the alt-right have in common
    • Government solutions are the simple solutions. Market solutions require more complex thinking.
    • Child labor
    • Poverty and welfare
    • Neoliberalism, Thatcherism, and Hayek-ianism
    • Adam Smith was NOT the godfather of the free market. More like the weird uncle.
    • The intern architect who predicted the 2008 financial crisis

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ana009: Patrik Schumacher (1 of 4) | Introduction and Housing Controversy

This is the first in a series of four episodes about Patrik Schumacher, Director of Zaha Hadid Architects, one of the world’s premier architecture firms. Patrik is also an author, professor, lecturer, and architectural theorist.

In November 2016, Patrik gave a presentation at the World Architecture Festival promoting libertarian and even anarcho-capitalist solutions to London’s housing crisis. In the midst of the media maelstrom that followed, Tim wrote a blog post, presented in this episode, that defined anarcho-capitalism and defended Patrik’s proposals.

Then things got interesting…

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Patrik Schumacher, Anarcho-Capitalist Architect

“When were you last in Hyde Park? How much are you actually using it? We need to know what it costs us!”

Patrik Schumacher might as well have suggested blowing up the moon when he proposed that Hyde Park in London should be privatized for development.

In a presentation at the World Architecture Festival 2016 in Berlin, Schumacher argued that London’s housing crisis is due to constraints imposed by government policies. In his “Urban Policy Manifesto,” he outlined eight “demands” for radical reductions of regulation and subsidies, and even private ownership of infrastructure and public spaces.

This polemic has predictably catapulted him into controversy, with some applauding his courage while others condemn his callousness, dubbing him “the Trump of architecture.”

But Schumacher is not some alt-right Twitter troll living in his parents basement. He is the Director of Zaha Hadid Architects, a 400-person international design firm that has produced some of the world’s most remarkable buildings of the last three decades, including the Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan and the London Aquatics Center for the 2012 Olympics. Schumacher was named Director after the untimely death in March 2016 of Dame Zaha Hadid, the groundbreaking Pritzker Prize winner whom Schumacher has worked alongside since 1988.

While he has clearly stated that his political views are his own and do not represent the firm (and the firm’s trustees have emphatically agreed), his position adds gravitas to what might otherwise be easily dismissed by the traditionally left-leaning architectural profession as irrelevant blasphemy.

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