{"id":8479,"date":"2026-05-19T10:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/?p=8479"},"modified":"2026-05-22T15:17:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:17:05","slug":"parametricism-is-a-technophile-triumph-of-fetishised-process-over-outcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/05\/19\/parametricism-is-a-technophile-triumph-of-fetishised-process-over-outcome\/","title":{"rendered":"“Parametricism is a technophile triumph of fetishised process over outcome”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heydar<\/div>\n

Parametricism<\/a> is not what humanity needs from architecture in the 21st century, writes Catherine Slessor<\/a> as part of our series on the style.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Because this felt like the perfect AI assignment,<\/strong> I asked ChatGPT<\/a> what it thought about parametricism. Within a nano-second, the Chatster had spewed out 700 words of add-water-and-stir prose, a simmering pot noodle (bot noodle?) of carefully sifted facts and opinions.<\/p>\n

“Parametricism,” it cogitated, “is a contemporary architectural style and design paradigm that emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, defined by fluid forms, continuous variation, and digitally driven processes. The term was popularised by architect and theorist Patrik Schumacher<\/a> of Zaha Hadid Architects<\/a>, who described parametricism as the successor to modernism and postmodernism. At its core, parametricism represents a shift from rigid geometries and standardised repetition toward dynamic systems of interrelated elements governed by parameters and algorithms.”<\/p>\n

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From the get-go, parametricism came cloaked in clunking verbiage<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Current architecture isn’t up to the task; what the “developed” world really needs is to scrap everything (notably, orthogonality and other messy stylistic distractions) and start again in sunnier, more progressive uplands, determinedly exploiting the technology of the day.<\/p>\n

Rather like Corb gazing at Canadian grain elevators<\/a> and exclaiming “This is the future!”, parametricism seems like an implausibly bold stroke, an epic purging of the past, upending all we thought we knew. No more tedious 20th-century stasis; instead, algorithmically powered 21st-century flux.<\/p>\n

“What used to be ineffable and intuitive becomes finally more scientifically tractable and computationally modellable,” asserted parametricism’s high priest and gatekeeper Schumacher, in a 2016 interview with Rowan Moore<\/a>. Moore, however, was more sceptical. “The style’s grand non sequitur is the assumption that, just because computers have the ability both to process complex information and to conceive complex shapes, one should lead to the other,” he opined.<\/p>\n