Archinect - News

Steven Holl winds up Helsinki with Meander Housing design

2024-09-18T17:28:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects, in collaboration with Newil&Bau, has opened a new multifamily development in Finland's capital called Meander Housing. The September 12th inauguration marks the end of a journey that first began in 2006 and underwent a period of dormancy before being constructed in just 2.5 years.

Image: Jenny Kallio

Helsinki’s Taivallahti Bay provides the backdrop to the 115-unit building that was recuperated from a former military barracks in the city’s Taka-Töölö district.

Image: © Kuvatoimisto Kuvio Oy

Holl designed the project as though building equivalent to a musical crescendo, with its 180 meter (591 foot) central volume tapering in section oriented to the ocean and fluctuating at various heights between two and seven floors.

Image: © Kuvatoimisto Kuvio Oy

Accordingly, it weaves or 'meanders' along a stem-winding path interspersed with strategically placed landscaped voids and wrapped in a glazed enclosure.

Image: Jenny Kallio

The wood materials used in its construction...

'Architecture as blossoms of the human spirit': Steven Holl reflects on 50 years of practice

2024-04-18T16:13:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects turns fifty this month. The globe-spanning operation that first began in California in 1974 and formed in New York three years later has been behind some of contemporary architecture’s most celebrated designs with 79 realized works in 13 U.S. states and 15 countries. Now, with five new projects in the pipeline, founder Steven Holl has shared with Archinect some reflections on his journey through architecture to mark the special anniversary milestone as part of a year-long commemoration.

St. Ignatius; concept watercolor from "Steven Holl", courtesy of Phaidon.

“Architecture is a great art with potential to change the way we live. I love drawing and painting ideas for architecture with the hope of public spaces realized as a gift to future generations. Merged with landscapes and ecologically advanced, I am looking forward to architecture as blossoms of the human spirit. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, ‘Buildings, too, are children of the Earth and Sun," he told us wh...

Steven Holl and SKUPINA-designed Terezín Ghetto Museum advances

2024-02-02T15:16:00-05:00

Steven Holl Architects is advancing toward the start of their Terezín Ghetto Museum project in the Czech Republic. The firm was named the winner of an international competition to design an extension of the existing museum in 2022 and will deliver the project on the site, which was first constructed as a citadel in 1780. The Schematic Design phase was completed in March.

Commemorating the lives of an estimated 33,000 Jews that were lost under Nazi occupation in Terezín between 1939 and 1942, the Museum is an important tool in the culture sector’s response to antisemitism and will result in a “hopeful new presence” in a country whose social fabric is seen by some as being strained by hate groups and far-right extremists.

Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects

SKUPINA, the 21-year-old studio founded in Prague by Marcela Steinbachová, is included as the co-architect of the scheme. The pair had previously collaborated on a small renovation project for the interiors of the Franz Kafka Soci...

Steven Holl Architects reveals design for UPenn's new Student Performing Arts Center

2023-06-16T16:57:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects has unveiled renderings for their design of a new Student Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadephia.

The 37,300-square-foot structure will provide dedicated space for the performing arts at Penn and features a 300-seat proscenium theater, 125-seat studio theater, support spaces, and five rehearsal studios. The firm says they will pursue a LEED-silver certification for the project, which is sited on the northeast quadrant of the 1,085-acre campus as a new gateway between the university and city beyond.

“It is a great joy and honor to work on a performing arts center for the students of this historic university on such an important site,” Holl stated.

Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects

The design for the Center itself evokes the iconic nearby Fisher Fine Arts Library, repeating the use of red terracotta in its façade while separating the program into unique suspended trapezoidal masses that are meant to echo the move...

New York City sues Steven Holl Architects over inaccessible Hunters Point Library design

2023-05-19T19:04:00-04:00

New York City is suing the architects behind the Hunters Point Library for tens of millions of dollars over portions of the structure not being accessible to people with handicaps, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. [...] The city’s lawsuit was filed May 17 in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. The defendants are Steven Holl Architect, PC, aka Steven Holl Architects, and the individuals Steven Holl and Christopher McVoy.

The original lawsuit was brought to Federal court in November 2019 by a local disability advocate named Tanya Jackson. The project debuted just two months prior and drew the immediate ire of critics who were quick to point out the flaws in its $41.5 million non-universal design. Steven Holl Architects senior partner McVoy has defended the project as "incredibly successful" since that time and now faces a total of $10 million in potential damages alongside Holl. Another $20 million could be assessed against the firm depending on the lawsuit’s outcome.

Previously on Archinect: Class action lawsuit filed in Hunters Point Library accessibility dispute

According to the complaint: "As designed and built, the Library failed in multiple ways to comply with the design requirements set forth in the requirements contract and Task Order 1. The areas of noncompliance included several primary design elements of the building, as well as ADA standards for bathroom layout, door clearances, and the li...

Steven Holl’s zinc-clad Ostrava Concert Hall set to begin construction

2023-04-21T11:39:00-04:00

Construction is set to begin on the Steven Holl Architects-designed Ostrava Concert Hall in the Czech Republic. Hall won the competition for the scheme’s design back in 2018 with a proposal that saw the concert hall “encased” in a case of zinc.

Image credit: Steven Holl Architects

The 1,300-seat concert hall was designed in collaboration with Prague-based associate architects Architecture Acts and is being developed in collaboration with the city of Ostrava. The team has previously described the scheme as a “perfect acoustic instrument in its case,” with a smooth facade of zinc covering a vineyard-type concert hall plan made of concrete and maple wood.

Image credit: Steven Holl Architects

“We celebrate the completion of construction drawings and building permit with the hope of realizing this great public work for the joy of future generations,” Hall said as the scheme prepares to begin construction. “Ostrava’s legacy of music, the highest art, shall get a space of perfect acoustics a...

Steven Holl completes Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ

2022-11-30T13:16:00-05:00

Steven Holl Architects has reached another milestone following the completion of the new Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, in late October.

The new 17,175-square-foot building provides the 92-year-old IAS with much-needed modern facilities while serving as a social condenser for researchers and the broader academic community.

Photo: Paul Warchol, image courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

Its design is inspired by the impetus for scholarly collaboration and therefore features a series of intertwining spaces set within an undulating, low-rise volume that connects to the existing Fuld Hall building and a trio of adjacent water features located to the north, west, and south on the IAS’s 589-acre campus.

Photo: Paul Warchol, image courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

“By having the ability to come together, the grea...

Steven Holl Architects international exhibition is on view at Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Poland

2021-06-15T16:40:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects’ traveling exhibition, Steven Holl: Making Architecture, has opened at the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Poland. This is the first venue to host the showcase in Europe, as the ninth stop of the exhibition’s tour.

The exhibit opened on June 11th, exclusively through an online broadcast and opened to the public the following day. Steven Holl: Making Architecture explores Holl’s intricate and distinctive creative process of making architecture through eleven projects, featuring a collection of approximately one hundred models, sketches, and other related studies. The exhibition highlights the rapidly changing pace of architecture, specifically, the way ideas are formed and visualized as manual tasks fade in favor of digital approaches. Steven Holl’s design approach that he is using to challenge the trend towards digitization, which famously includes painting in watercolors at every stage of a building’s construction, is put on full display.

View of the exh...

First photos and a virtual tour of Steven Holl's new Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

2020-11-19T17:28:00-05:00

Nearly eight years after selecting Steven Holl's ambitious expansion concept, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is preparing to officially open the completed structure to the public on Saturday, November 21.

Dedicated to the collection of modern and contemporary art, the new 237,000-sf Nancy and Rich Kinder Building houses galleries, seven garden courtyards, a 215-seat theater, two pedestrian tunnels, a parking arrival hall, conference rooms, a restaurant overlooking the Isamu Noguchi sculpture garden, a cafe, and a triple-story forum.

North facade. © Richard Barnes.

"The Texas sky opens 180°overhead above a luminous canopy covering the new building," explains the architects' project description. "Concave curves, imagined from cloud circles, push down on the roof geometry, allowing natural light to slip in with precise measure and quality, perfect for top-lit galleries. Organized horizontally on two levels, all galleries have natural light and are flexible with open flow."

East facad...

Steven Holl's just-opened Winter Visual Arts Building emerged from a sketch of a kite stuck in the trees

2020-10-05T12:46:00-04:00

Just completed this month, the new Winter Visual Arts Building, designed by Steven Holl Architects, takes shape on the historic campus of Franklin & Marshal College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The formal qualities of the new structure takes its inspiration from the kite Benjamin Franklin wielded when he first "harnessed electricity." The initial sketches of the building embraces the webbed form of a kite "stuck in the trees."

Moreover, the design team moved to play off the geometry of the 200-year-old trees that surround the site. "We thought of the geometry of trees as a way to give shape to the new arts building. Instead of echoing the rectangular block of the former arts building, the new pavilion takes its shape from the inflection of the diameters of those large campus trees," the architects write in a statement.

The resulting architecture is a raised two-story "box-kite" steel frame that sits on two ground floor concrete rectangles. The creates a series...

New construction photos of Steven Holl's Shanghai Cofco Cultural and Health Center

2020-05-12T14:48:00-04:00

Construction work just resumed at the Shanghai site for the new Cofco Cultural and Health Center designed by Steven Holl Architects.

The 80,944-sf facility combines medical spaces, a pharmacy and nursery with cultural functions, including a library, gym, exhibition area, cafe, and community areas.

Arranged around a circular central public garden, the two-building ensemble topped out in January and aims for completion in December 2020.

Photo © Aogvision

"The new Shanghai Cofco Cultural and Health Center aims at being a
'social condenser,' bringing the community of the surrounding new
housing blocks together in a public space and park along an existing
canal," explains the project description. "While the housing blocks are
repetitive and extensive, here the architecture is of spatial energy and
openness, inviting the whole community in for recreational &
cultural programs while health needs are provided by the integral health
building."

Photo © Aogvision

Photo © Aogvis...

Watch Steven Holl Architects’ new Kennedy Center addition come to life

2020-04-17T16:14:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects has unveiled a new video highlighting the firm’s designs for a new wing that has been added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from Steven Holl Architects on Vimeo.

The video, embedded above, highlights the 72,000-square-foot building and the set of open studios, rehearsal and performance spaces, and dedicated arts learning spaces included in the project, as well as the design’s considered layout and site configuration. The singular addition is situation below an occupiable roof marked by three pavilions.

The project, which features eye-catching “crinkle concrete” interior finishes that help absorb sound, debuted to the public in 2019.

The video was developed with the help of Spirit of Space, a group that has produced architectural videos for firms that include Studio Gang, SHoP, SOM, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and others.

...

Class action lawsuit filed in Hunters Point Library accessibility dispute

2019-11-26T13:29:00-05:00

New York City-based legal group Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) has filed a class action lawsuit against a collection of public agencies representing the borough of Queens, New York "challenging the inaccessibility" of the new Steven Holl Architects-designed Hunters Point Library, according to a press statement.

A press release announcing the suit reads: "Under longstanding disability rights laws, newly constructed buildings must be made fully accessible to people with disabilities. Yet Hunters Point Library, which is an entirely new $41.5 million building constructed after years of in-depth planning, shockingly excludes persons with mobility disabilities from full and equal access to its services through reliance on stairs and other inaccessible features."

The statement argues that a series of "barriers" to accessibility exist at the library, including:

Three levels within the building are "completely inaccessible to persons with mobility disabilities"
The children’s section inc...

Accessibility lapses at Hunters Point library continue to draw ire online and in person

2019-11-06T13:17:00-05:00

In the weeks following the much-anticipated opening of the Steven Holl Architects-designed Hunters Point Library in Queens, New York City, much of the public discourse regarding the structure has focused on a collection of accessibility and design oversights embodied by the library's design.

Photo © Steven Holl Architects.

A recent article in The New York Times highlights several of these issues, which include the location of the library's adult fiction collections along a series of inaccessible terraced levels as well a relative lack of elevators in the facilities. According to the article, the complex, which was in the works for nearly two decades, is served by a singular lift, a condition that has made the building difficult to navigate, especially for patrons with disabilities and parents who have children. The arrangement has left many on social media with a sour taste, as suggested fixes, including having librarians access collections by hand for patrons, have been interpreted...

Steven Holl Architects' Hunters Point Library is now open to the public

2019-09-25T12:00:00-04:00

Opening day finally arrived for the Steven Holl Architects-designed Hunters Point Library, which took some 10 tumultuous years of obstacles and ultimately cost over $40 million to realize. Built on a 32,000-square-foot site facing the East River in Long Island City, Hunters Point is a sculptural, standalone building and public park.

Photo © Paul Warchol.

“It is an honor to imagine and realize this community library, a free open public building where people can interact across generations,” Steven Holl said in a statement. “We hope it is a gift to this great city and its future children.”

Photo © Steven Holl Architects.

A 22,000-square-foot, jigsaw-like concrete structure painted in aluminum that gives it a “subtle sparkle,” the library reveals a warm bamboo interior that creates an inviting social and reading space. Large windows on all sides of the building allow ample natural light and provide views of the river. Visitors can move up and along a serie...

A decade in the making, Steven Holl's Queens Library prepares for its grand opening

2019-09-19T15:48:00-04:00

The Hunters Point Community Library is one of the finest public buildings New York has produced this century. But it cost more than $40 million, took a decade and almost died.

NYT architecture critic Michael Kimmelman is full of praise for the Steven Holl Architects-designed Hunters Point Community Library in Queens which will finally be opening to the public next week Tuesday, September 24th.

Impression of the under-construction library building in November 2017. Photo: Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons

"Compact, at 22,000 square feet and 82 feet high, the library is among the finest and most uplifting public buildings New York has produced so far this century," writes Kimmelman and asks: "Why can’t New York build more things like this, faster and cheaper?"

A look at the Kennedy Center's sound-diffusing "crinkle concrete"

2019-09-12T13:00:00-04:00

When you have two concrete parallel walls, like we do in our rehearsal spaces and then in the Justice Forum [an intimate theater space], parallel walls are really bad for acoustics. You get a condition called flutter echo, where you have two sound waves bouncing off two parallel hard surfaces. So we had to break that sound up. What we needed to do was create a random texture which would diffuse and break up the sound. That’s where we came up with crinkled concrete.

In a recent interview with CityLab, Steven Holl Architects' senior associate Garrick Ambrose discusses a design solution the firm created in order to mediate acoustics within their newly opened Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts expansion, The REACH, in Washington, D.C.

Image © Richard Barnes

Ambrose shares with CityLab, "We knew that we needed to create a three-inch-deep texture in the concrete surface that would diffuse and break up the sound to mitigate the echo. We knew that the pattern needed to be as random as possible."

"We experimented in our shop with different ways of getting that three-inch relief. When we stumbled upon crinkling the metal, we found that it was incredibly striking visually, and it gave us the random pattern needed, and it also gave us the three-inch depth to break up the sound."

Steven Holl Architects' The REACH at The Kennedy Center makes its public debut

2019-09-09T21:00:00-04:00

Five years after breaking ground, The REACH at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts celebrated its grand opening this past Saturday. Designed by Steven Holl Architects with BNIM, The REACH is the Kennedy Center's first expansion project in its 48-year history. The Kennedy Center was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and opened in 1971.

Comprising of three interconnected, geometric pavilions, the expansion adds some 72,000 square-feet of rehearsal, education, and flexible indoor and outdoor spaces to allow the Kennedy Center to provide enriching artistic and cultural opportunities and events to visitors.

Photo: Richard Barnes.

The windows of each pavilion are positioned to provide views through the full depth of the interior. “Through etching the glass, and sandwiching translucent white films between layers, luminous surfaces diffuse light deep into the interior, and glow outward at night,” SHA describes.

Collaborating closely with th...

New preview photos of Steven Holl Architect's Kennedy Center expansion, The REACH, ahead of September opening

2019-06-03T18:32:00-04:00

New preview photos have been released of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' anticipated expansion project, called the REACH.

The Steven Holl Architects-designed ensemble of three contiguous pavilions broke ground in 2014 and is scheduled to officially open to the public with a 16-day festival from September 7th through the 22nd this year.

Skylight Pavilion and Welcome Pavilion Exterior. Photo: Jonathan Morefield.

Part of the Center's $250m Building the Future capital campaign, the REACH is the D.C. institution's first major expansion project since its opening on September 8, 1971.

Below is a selection of photos of the nearly completed 4.6-acre complex we have received from Steven Holl Architects.

Welcome Pavilion and Skylight Pavilion Exterior. Photo: Jonathan Morefield.

Welcome Pavilion Exterior Windows. Photo: Jonathan Morefield.

Window and Custom Hanging Lights, Skylight Pavilion Detail. Photo: Jonathan Morefield.

Triangle Stairs. Photo: Jonathan Morefield.

White Boa...

Steven Holl Architects releases short video spotlighting VCU Institute for Contemporary Art

2019-01-03T16:11:00-05:00

Steven Holl Architects recently released a short video by Milkbox NY that highlights the VCU Institute for Contemporary Art that opened last April in Richmond. Hear Steven Holl and Chris McVoy talk more about the ICA's dynamic design, while artists and VCUarts faculty and alumni comment on the building's impact on the local community over the last nine months. You can watch the 6-minute feature below.

First glimpse: Steven Holl Architects to design geometric, mixed-use complex in Beijing

2018-10-25T18:53:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects gave a first glimpse into their second mixed-use project in Beijing. At 26,000m2, the geometric building will accommodate office and retail spaces in the city's Fengtai district.

Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

SHA's main elements in their design were light, structure, open offices, urban porosity, and gardens/ecology. In response to code setback requirements, the project's north facade has distinctive curves slopes that create varying qualities of diffused natural light throughout the interior. On the south facade, sculpted cuts allow light into the office and retail spaces below ground level. The aluminum-painted concrete will be OSB formed, while the curves will have a smooth matte finish.

Office view. Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

“The structure consists of four layers: a glass exterior laid over truss, secondary tubes, and an interior layer of translucent barrisol or newmat,” SHA says. The exterior concrete stru...

Steven Holl Architects' Kennedy Center expansion, The REACH, to open in September 2019

2018-06-05T15:06:00-04:00

Construction of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' expansion project in Washington D.C. is still underway. Known as The REACH, the new building is the Center's first expansion in its 47-year history. Breaking ground in 2014, The REACH is currently scheduled to open on September 7, 2019.

Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the 4.6-acre project will add some 72,000 square-feet of much-needed interior space, increasing the Center's public areas by more than 20 percent.

Rendering of The REACH. Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

The REACH, View of Skylight Pavilion from Rock Creek Parkway, June 2018. Photo: Field Conditions.

The REACH, Interior of Skylight Pavilion, May 2018. Photo: Field Conditions.

Envisioned as an open, interconnected space, the building will add rehearsal and classroom space to support the Center's new and existing programs, while offering public access. “We imagine an energized, active space where visitors can go behind the scenes, observe an intim...

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to inaugurate Glassell School of Art on May 20, completes first phase of redevelopment

2018-05-15T18:48:00-04:00

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will celebrate the inauguration of the Glassell School of Art this Sunday, May 20, marking the completion of the first phase of the museum's 14-acre redevelopment. The first phase also includes the BBVA Compass Roof Garden designed by Steven Holl Architects and The Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza by Deborah Nevins & Associates.

According to recent details from the MFAH, the Steven Holl Architects-designed, L-shaped Glassell School of Art features a 93,000 square-foot interior containing: three dozen studios illuminated with natural light; public gallery spaces for student and alumni exhibitions; a broad-stepped central staircase serving as the school's forum; a 75-seat auditorium; and a public coffee bar. With summer classes scheduled to begin on June 4, the school is the only museum-affiliated art school in the U.S. serving pr...

Steven Holl's Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU to open April 21

2018-04-17T15:14:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects' new Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) will open to the public on April 21, 2018. The ICA's new building named the Markel Center will debut with its inaugural exhibition Declaration, an exploration of contemporary art’s power to respond to pressing social issues. This will be Virginia's first art institution dedicated exclusively to exhibiting contemporary art.

Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU Markel Center at night. Image: Iwan Baan.

Aerial view of the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Image: Iwan Baan.

The building features dual entrances opening to the city’s arts district on one side and VCU’s Monroe Park campus on the other, providing a connection between the two.

View of the Royall Forum at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Image: Iwan Baan.

Steven Holl Architects activated the 41,000 square feet of space with an open design to create flexibility. With an inviting 33-foot-high central forum, ...

Steven Holl Architects breaks ground on new Winter Visual Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College

2018-03-28T15:16:00-04:00

Yesterday, Steven Holl Architects broke ground on Franklin & Marshall College's new $29 million, four level, 35,000 square foot Visual Arts Building. The Susan & Benjamin Winter Visual Arts Center, named for the trustees who helped fund the project, will bring a wide range of teaching studios, galleries managed by the Phillips Museum of Art, classrooms, student and faculty work spaces, space for digital and analog film production and editing, and an 84-seat cinema that doubles as lecture hall and performance space.

Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects.

Described by Holl as a "pavillion on the park," the design was heavily influenced by the numerous hundred-year-old-plus trees that populate the campus. "Raised kite-like into the trees, the building’s light profile is a concave response to the large diameters of the campus’ trees," describes the firm. Another prominent feature is a glass-enclosed forum in the center of the ground floor that will allow p...

Steven Holl Architects' Maggie's Centre at Barts is now open

2017-12-14T19:27:00-05:00

Over two years after the groundbreaking, the new Maggie's Centre Barts in Central London finally opened earlier this week. Located throughout the UK, Maggie's Centres offer free practical and emotional support for people who live with cancer and their loved ones.

Steven Holl Architects, along with UK firm jmarchitects, designed the 3-story building as a “vessel within a vessel within a vessel”. The new Maggie's Centre replaces a 1960s brick structure, adjacent to a 17th-century stone structure by James Gibbs.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

Built next to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (London's oldest hospital), the Centre's exterior shows off a translucent glass facade that gives the structure a glowing appearance. The facade has colored glass fragments arranged in horizontal bands like a musical staff, in reference to the “neume notation” of 13-century Medieval music, SHA describes.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

The building's translucent facade allows the interior to be filled with natural lig...

Steven Holl-designed Lewis Center for the Arts complex opens at Princeton University

2017-10-10T16:14:00-04:00

A four-day arts festival marked the opening of Princeton University's new Lewis Center for the Arts complex this past weekend. Designed by Steven Holl Architects in partnership with BNIM, the 145,000-sq-ft facility is comprised of three buildings — the Wallace Dance Building and Theater, the New Music Building, and the Arts Tower — and completes the university's long dream of uniting the Center’s programs in dance, theater, music theater, the Princeton Atelier, and the Department of Music’s expansion under one, well, three roofs.

The three buildings are interconnected underground and joined in an 8,000 square-foot open indoor gathering space, dubbed the Forum. A landscaped outdoor plaza with a reflecting pool and green spaces — developed in collaboration with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates — sits atop the Forum, and an outdoor installation by Maya Lin has been commissioned and will be added later.

Read on for more images and project details we've received from the ...

Steven Holl designs a pair of white concrete buildings for a new Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai

2017-01-25T12:48:00-05:00

“To work on architecture for culture and health is a social commitment during these challenging times,” states Steven Holl. His proposal for a new Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai has just received approval. Comprising two buildings set in a public landscape, the project is intended to bring a cluster of new housing blocks together.

Inspired by Karl Popper’s 1965 lecture on the evolutionary model of free will entitled, “Of Clouds and Clocks,” the landscape design is “organized in large clock-like circles forming a central public space, the buildings are cloud-like in their porosity and openness inviting the public in.”

The Cultural Center will be constructed in white concrete and set on a base of transparent glass, containing a cafe and recreation rooms. A curved ramp provides look-outs. The adjacent Health Center, also made of white concrete, is intended to fit into the curving landscape. This structure will house a health and education center, a pharmacy, examination rooms, an...

Watch "Ex of IN House," an unusual, compelling new video from Steven Holl

2017-01-24T12:43:00-05:00

Poetry, abstracted Venn diagrams of spheres, and a love for natural materials are just some of the components that go into this video from Steven Holl, who acts as a kind of a hyper-thoughtful Huell Howser as he explores a gorgeous new home parented primarily by concept. Entitled "Ex of IN House," the video explores the formulation, execution, and daily reality of a home built on a splendor of acreage in Rhinebeck, New York. Likening program to a bunch of bananas, Holl advocates for abstraction in the design process, explaining that with the concept of IN, "all space is sacred." With a soundtrack that seems to combine the plinkiness of Thomas Newman with the urgency of Clint Mansell, it's a bit of a wonder (click here to view).

Steven Holl to be honored at 2017 BOMB Magazine Gala

2016-12-19T16:49:00-05:00

BOMB Magazine, the influential art journal founded in 1981, will honor architect Steven Holl at its 2017 gala on May 5, 2017. Holl will be the first architect honored at the annual event.

"The logically unbridgeable gap between concepts and ideas and the world of sense perception is bridged by great works of art. I am deeply grateful to be honored by BOMB—an inspiring bridge connecting amazing artists' ideas," said Steven Holl.

Archinect - News

Steven Holl winds up Helsinki with Meander Housing design

'Architecture as blossoms of the human spirit': Steven Holl reflects on 50 years of practice

Steven Holl and SKUPINA-designed Terezín Ghetto Museum advances

Steven Holl Architects reveals design for UPenn's new Student Performing Arts Center

New York City sues Steven Holl Architects over inaccessible Hunters Point Library design

Steven Holl’s zinc-clad Ostrava Concert Hall set to begin construction

Steven Holl completes Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ

Steven Holl Architects international exhibition is on view at Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Poland

First photos and a virtual tour of Steven Holl's new Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Steven Holl's just-opened Winter Visual Arts Building emerged from a sketch of a kite stuck in the trees

New construction photos of Steven Holl's Shanghai Cofco Cultural and Health Center

Watch Steven Holl Architects’ new Kennedy Center addition come to life

Class action lawsuit filed in Hunters Point Library accessibility dispute

Accessibility lapses at Hunters Point library continue to draw ire online and in person

Steven Holl Architects' Hunters Point Library is now open to the public

A decade in the making, Steven Holl's Queens Library prepares for its grand opening

A look at the Kennedy Center's sound-diffusing "crinkle concrete"

Steven Holl Architects' The REACH at The Kennedy Center makes its public debut

New preview photos of Steven Holl Architect's Kennedy Center expansion, The REACH, ahead of September opening

Steven Holl Architects releases short video spotlighting VCU Institute for Contemporary​ Art

First glimpse: Steven Holl Architects to design geometric, mixed-use complex in Beijing

Steven Holl Architects' Kennedy Center expansion, The REACH, to open in September 2019

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to inaugurate Glassell School of Art on May 20, completes first phase of redevelopment

Steven Holl's Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU to open April 21

Steven Holl Architects breaks ground on new Winter Visual Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College

Steven Holl Architects' Maggie's Centre at Barts is now open

Steven Holl-designed Lewis Center for the Arts complex opens at Princeton University

Steven Holl designs a pair of white concrete buildings for a new Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai

Watch "Ex of IN House," an unusual, compelling new video from Steven Holl

Steven Holl to be honored at 2017 BOMB Magazine Gala

Steven Holl Architects releases short video spotlighting VCU Institute for Contemporary Art