Patrik S. Schumacher (born August 30, 1961 in Bonn, Germany) is a German architect and university lecturer. He is regarded as an influential theorist in architecture and planning with respect to the promotion of Parametricism.

Career

Schumacher worked with Zaha Hadid from 1988 until her death in 2016. Since 2002 he has been a partner with Zaha Hadid Architects. He studied Philosophy and Mathematics at the University of Bonn and at London Southbank University from 1980 onwards, later he studied architecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart, where he graduated in 1990. In 1999, he received a PhD in philosophy at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the University of Klagenfurt.

After learning about a Zaha Hadid design for a leisure and recreational park on a hillside in Hong Kong, he applied for an internship at the firm which he completed while studying in London in 1983. From 1988 onwards, he worked full time in Zaha Hadid's studio and later became her most important collaborator. From 1992, Schumacher had several lectures and guest professorships at architecture faculties in the UK, continental Europe and the US. Together with Brett Steele, he founded the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1996 and is still one of its co-directors. Since 2004 he has been a professor at the Chair of Experimental Architecture at the Institute of Experimental Architecture at the University of Innsbruck.