‘It’s the end of architecture’ – Zaha Hadid Architects boss declares war on woke culture

By Ben Flatman2025-02-28T13:29:00

Patrik Schumacher at Negroni Talk: The Problem with Affordable Housing_10 ©

Source: Agnese Sanvito

Blaming a decline in architectural education, Patrik Schumacher claims universities have replaced design rigour with political discourse, stifling innovation

Patrik Schumacher, principal of Zaha Hadid Architects, has claimed that architecture as a discipline has ceased to exist, blaming “woke virtue-signalling,” political distractions, and stagnation in architectural education for its supposed demise.

In a 13,000-word essay titled The End of Architecture, published in the Serbian architecture and philosophy journal, Khōrein, Schumacher argues that architecture “has self-dissolved, eroding its intellectual and professional autonomy under the pressures of anti-capitalist politicisation and woke virtue-signalling.”

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