Back to Writings The Invention of Modern Design The Early Years of the German Werkbund, Khorein Book Series, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade 2026 The cultural, economic, and political role of the German Werkbund in the German Empire leading up to the First World War raises many questions of contemporary relevance regarding [ ]
Back to Writings Urban Over-regulation ParalysisPatrik Schumacher, London 2026Published in: Austin Williams (Ed.), Five Critical Essays on Over-regulation, TRG Publishing, London 2026 The unmitigated housing crisis gripping Britain is not a failure of markets but the most visible consequence of their suspension. Since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, development rights in the United [ ]
Back to Writings The Power of Architecture:Transhistorical Dimensions and Contemporary ParametersPatrik Schumacher, London 2025Published in: Tai Lee Siang Ong Eng Hong (eds), The Power of Design and AI Convergence,CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2025 AbstractThis paper articulates the foundational societal role of architecture as the spatial framework that organizes and facilitates human…
Back to Writings AI Productivity and CreativityPatrik SchumacherPublished in: Williams, A.(ed), Five Critical Essays on AI, TRG Publishing, London 2025 There is a lot of ambivalence in architecture, as well as in society at large, about the effects of Artificial Intelligence. For me and my firm the advent of AI has been an unmitigated boon. [ ]
Back to Writings DEI’s Time of ReckoningPatrik Schumacher, London 2025Afterword to Five Critical Essays on Diversity, Equity Inclusion in Architecture,Edited by Austin Williams,TRG Publishing, London 2025 This collection of essay offers a timely critical engagement with an ideology and ideological practice DEI that has in recent years been increasingly interfering with the [ ]
Back to Writings The End of ArchitecturePatrik Schumacher, London, January 2025 Published in: KHOREIN – Journal for Architecture and Philosophy, Vol 2, No 2 (2024): END ABSTRACT: Architecture, as an autonomous, theory-led discipline, has ceased to exist. This paper posits the “end of architecture” not as rhetorical hyperbole but as a historically grounded assertion. The [ ]
Back to Writings BeautyThe indispensable category explained, justified and critically employedPatrik Schumacher, Tongji, Shanghai 2024 Published in: Architectural Intelligence, Springer Nature, November 2024 Abstract: Beauty as the manifestation of aesthetic responses and valuations is a human universal. All societies operate with (a version of) the category of beauty. We all navigate the world…
Back to Writings A Smart Paradigm for Participatory Urban DesignPatrik Schumacher Shajay Booshan Published in: The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking in Architecture Urbanismedited by Mitra Kanaani for Routledge Companion series, Routledge, London New York 2025 Abstract: This paper describes, illustrates, and discusses the idea of a gamified online platform for [ ]
Back to Writings Wellbeing via Architecture?Patrik Schumacher, London 2024 Published in: Five Critical Essays on Wellbeing, TRG Publishing, London 2024 Is Wellbeing just the latest vacuous fad in architecture? Is it, as Reinier de Graaf argues in his recent book “architect, verb” on “the new language of building”, part and parcel of the recently proliferating [ ]
Back to Writings Ethical self-determination against the grainPatrik Schumacher, London 2024 Afterword to Five Critical Essays on Architectural Ethics, Austin Williams (Editor), TRG Publishing, London 2024 This group of essays goes against the grain of the increasingly moralising tendency in our discipline. This tendency echoes a general societal trend, imposing ready-made values like…