About Architect Steven Holl, Time, Space, and Light

About Architect Steven Holl, Time, Space, and Light I was in the Washington, DC convention center when Steven Holl accepted the 2012 AIA Gold Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Institute of Architects. I listened to Holls watercolor-like speech over the loudspeakers, as I rushed through the hallways, running late.   Architecture is an art bridging the humanities and the sciences, Holl said. We work bone-deep in Art- drawing lines between sculpture, poetry, music and science that coalesce in Architecture. That, I thought, is architecture. Steven Myron Holl is known for his strong viewpoints and his beautiful watercolors. He is constantly painting, both in words and with brushes. He also is known as the thinking mans architect, an intellectual philosopher who connects disciplines. Background: Born: December 9, 1947, Bremerton, Washington Education: 1971, BA, University of WashingtonPostgraduate study in Rome, Italy and the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, UK Professional Experience: 1976-present: Steven Holl Architects, stevenholl.com/; Twitter at stevenhollarch1981-present: Tenured Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University, NYCChris McVoy, Senior Partner at Steven Holl Architects, co-designs with Holl in addition to his pracitce with Beth ONeill, ONeill McVoy Architects Design Philosophy: Rather than imposing a style upon different sites and climates, or pursued irrespective of program, the unique character of a program and a site becomes the starting point for an architectural idea. While anchoring each work in its specific site and circumstance, Steven Holl Architects endeavors to obtain a deeper beginning in the experience of time, space, light and materials. The phenomena of the space of a room, the sunlight entering through a window, and the color and reflection of materials on a wall and floor all have integral relationships. The materials of architecture communicate through resonance and dissonance, just as instruments in musical composition, producing thought and sense-provoking qualities in the experience of a place. - About Steven Holl Architects, website at www.stevenholl.com/studio.php?typeabout, accessed September 22, 2014 Selected Architecture Projects 1991: Void Space/Hinged Space Housing, Fukuoka, Japan1996: Makuhari Bay New Town, Chiba, Japan1997: Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University, Washington1998: Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland2002: Memorial Square by Meier, Eisenman, Gwathmey/Siegel, Holl , unrealized proposed design to redevelop Ground Zero, Lower Manhattan2002: Simmons Hall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts2007: Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, New Jersey2007: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Bloch Building Addition, Kansas City, Missouri2009: Linked Hybrid, Beijing, China2009: Vanke Center Horizontal Skyscraper, Shenzhen, China2009: Knut Hamsun Center, Hamarà ¸y, Norway2012: Expansion Project, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC2012: Danish Natural History Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark2013: Campbell Sports Center, Columbia University, New York2014: Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland2014: Beirut Mar ina at Zaitunay Bay, Beirut, Lebanon 2016: Visual Arts Building, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa2016: Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia2017: Expansion of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC Furniture: A2-Chair, 2013A-Chair, 1980, 2005Riddled Table, lasercut, 2006, 2007 Awards: 2014: Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award, Japan Art Association2012: Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects (AIA)2010: Jencks Award, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)2009: BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award1998: Alvar Aalto Medal, Finland1998: La Grande Medaille dOr, Academy of Architecture, France1990: Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters In the Words of Steve Holl: From the Five Minute Manifesto, 2012 The essential power of Architecture is PARALLAX: the horizontal and vertical movement through forms and light over time, as we- our bodies- pass by, walk up, go inside, walk through inspired space. The joy and ambiguity of SCALELESSNESS excites the imagination through Mysteries of Proportion like Fibonaccis - 0, 1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 †¦ - which wakes us to Geometrical Feeling. Forget mono-functional buildings! Make Hybrid Buildings: Living Working Recreation Culture Make a New Fusion of landscape, architecture, and URBANISM, a fusion of luminosity and porosity into Cities of Matter with spirit. Make New Cities- our greatest artwork- with the same urgency as we restore the natural landscape and biodiversity. Selected Writings and Paintings by Steven Holl: Anchoring, Princeton Architectural Press, 1989Edge of a City, Pamphlet Architecture 13, Princeton Architectural Press, 1991Parallax, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000Written in Water, Lars Muller Publishers, 2002House: Black Swan Theory, Princeton Architectural Press, 2007Steven Holl: Architecture Spoken, Rizzoli, 2007Urbanisms: Working with Doubt, Princeton Architectural Press, 2009New Haiti Villages, Pamphlet Architecture 31, Princeton Architectural Press, 2010Scale, Lars Muller Publisher, 2012Horizontal Skyscraper, William Stout Publishers, 2011 Who is Steve Holl? Holl is viewed as assertive by people who are trying to be complimentary, and as a bull in a china shop by people who aren’t, comments architecture critic Paul Goldberger in The New Yorker magazine. Arguably, Holls Vanke Center in China is the architecture that fulfills his philosophical vision. Imagine the Empire State Building on its side, with giant piers cradling the structure several stories above a ground prone to natural disasters. The multi-use horizontal skyscraper incorporates sustainable design and urban planning. Mr. Holl has designed a building that pushes its users to stop and think about the world around them, says Nicolai Ouroussoff in The New York Times. It is an architecture that opens doors to new possibilities. The answers he supplies in all of his designs draw from architecture, of course, but also from engineering, science, art, philosophy, and literature, writes Zach Mortice, Managing Editor of AIArchitect. Holl is the rare architect who can combine these gentlemanly pursuits (he often develops designs by painting them in water colors, for example) and use them as source material and method for buildings that aggressively push the edge of what’s possible. Sources: Lenses on the Lawn by Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker, April 30, 2007; Five Minute Manifesto, Steven Holl, Washington, D.C., AIA Gold Medal Ceremony, May 18, 2012 [accessed October 31, 2014]; Steven Holl, 2014 Laureate in Architecture, The Japan Art Association at www.praemiumimperiale.org/en/component/k2/item/310-holl [accessed September 22, 2014]; Turning Design on Its Side by Nicolai Ouroussoff, The New York Times, June 27, 2011 [accessed November 1, 2014]