Pretty much everything about the building points to me not liking it: huge, slick, iconic, pulls life up off the street into private enclaves. But it's so alluring, I can't resist. Beautiful to look at - and I'm sure it delivers as one moves through it as well.
From the 12th to the 18th floor a multi-functional series of skybridges with a swimming pool, a fitness room, a café, a gallery, auditorium and a mini salon connects the eight residential towers and the hotel tower, and offers spectacular views over the unfolding city. Programmatically this loop aspires to be semi-lattice-like rather than simplistically linear. We hope the public sky-loop and the base-loop will constantly generate random relationships. They will function as social condensers resulting in a special experience of city life to both residents and visitors.
The article says the bridges contain "public functions", so I assume they are public in the same way an American mall is, that is, not actually public, but giving the impression of being so.
The subtlety of it must be what I love. Those tiny bits of triangulation in the facade.
Construction shots and a sadly-too-small map of the bridges on DeZeen, a year ago.
Sure it looks fantastic in pictures, what building doesnt? However, those pictures don't really tell the story. I went to an exhibition last weekend at the Grand MOMA located in the finished wing of the "linked hybrid". What stood out was the detailing and craft in the complex is absolutely HORRIBLE. Blame it on shoddy construction or poor detailing by Holl + staff but it looks like it had been thrown together to meet a developers deadline. Aside from the obvious physical disparities, the social condition that Holl hopes to create i.e. a "contemporary hutong" is ludicrous. These culturally rich communities, ironically he demolished one to build this monstrosity, will not function as a public space but as stated previously a private enclave that turns its back on the area.
Now it isn't all bad, the courtyard condition is quite beautiful and a very relaxing getaway from the hustle and bustle of Beijing. I did manage to get a tour of an apartment and it certainly met the expectation of a new development by a western architect. So if you want to live outside 3rd ring rd and avoid all that goes along with that lifestyle then the linked hybrid is a change of pace. Just don't buy into the BS of this being a "contemporary hutong" or having any real connection to the community.
i didn't know he wanted it to be contemp hutong. not possible really, is it?
it doesn't seem to turn its back in the photos. the edges are rather porous all things considered...pretty much just what a semi-public urban space should be really - open but not too inviting....
whatever the quality of the craftsmanship, the planning is clearly much better than standard for china today. much better than standard in most countries to be honest. and that is an accomplishment at least.
i have to admit his project here in tokyo (in makuhari) was also a let-down. the planning again was quite good but the whole did not work somehow. couldn't say why, except that the masterplan for the area was not particulalrly good. perhaps this project falls down a bit for the same reason?
The subtlety I'm liking is in the facade - the projections, and the cross-bracing, and the color. Of course what I call subtlety detractors of modern architecture would call boring or inhumane.
The housing blocks visible in the background are boring.
I'm sorry to hear the craftsmanship isn't as good as it could be. I hope it holds up over time.
Love Holl, love the bridges, but the rest just looks like a box to me (not unlike other large boxes he's done).
Rendering/model images look better at the pedestrian level, maybe we'll see more photos from this level. Need to see how active those bridges will actually be.
I think there were supposed to be geothermal wells, too? If this ended being the case, I can imagine there will still be "green xxx" and "eco xxx" in the brochures, yet, hehe.
I'm hoping the linked bridge condenser will work out -- I imagine it might've been a challenge to make sure it gets enough activity and business.
I'm wondering if they're maintaining the circulation width in them, otherwise it will be a circuit in name only.. it seems easy to imagine they could end up being clumps of program only accessible by the towers immediately adjacent to each end, and to go to another part of the loop you might have to go down the core and come back up in another tower, someplace else. (some of the program elements sound like they'd be kind of closed, but I guess the ideal is for them not to be.)
yeah, if they aren't accessible as one continuous loop then they'd just be a snazzy bridge. I'll hold off on that, though, and assume that Holl and Co. thought of that very thoroughly (or he just added somethign that looks cool, which is ok, as long as they are something worthwhile).
The bridge idea, while certainly not new or original, is cool. It is the big, uniformly banal blocks that I don't like. I look forward to seeing more of the pedestrian level too.
Hi Liberty, just as you find it beautiful to look at, I find it horrendous, I believe it’s a matter of composition, the proportion of the open squares looks too poor to me.
The Dutch have shown us many successful exercises in composition and proportion for banal towers like these that actually result quite pleasing to look at, but these, to me, are just plain ugly.
The urban scheme is much more interesting as it generates that urban-sized inner courtyard, and the whole compound certainly is a contribution to the public space and the city as it is easily readable as a whole. But if, those bridges don’t work, oh my god !!
In general it’s that maybe I just don’t like Holl’s aesthetics when built, I much prefer him as a watercolorist.
I remember seeing some renderings or sketches of the interiors of the bridges, and it seemed like they really had the right idea (I think the program was unspecified in those sketches, and it was just articulation of the space)..
holl unsettles me with his sense of scale...the planning seems interesting to me, but the dialogue of the link and the masses seem out of balance to me...the masses, even with the color, cross bracing, projections seem overbearing to me...again, the sense of scale (read m.i.t.) - the planning for it does seem successful, but his concept (and i am seeing some political cynicism in it, right?) begs for balance and harmony, and i can't find it in the images...
i should mention i have a love/hate relationship with s.holl's architecture....
mauone's link though...that seems very promising (although it reminded me immediately of morphosis student center at uofcincinnatti)
Holl has never been great at formal designs. He always seems to fumble with things, leaving awkward additions, strange shapes, etc. It is like he wants to have the natural talent of Gehry or Hadid, but just can't get there.
That said, his use of light and materials far outweigh his clumsy formal attempts, imho.
I don't know, simples, and trace. Zaha's work mostly feels awkward to me - for example, the way the Austrian train stations meet the ground - or rather, the graceless concrete bases - is really, REALLY uncomfortable. The contrast between "lightness" and foundation is not only not resolved, but totally ignored.
That said, a lot of it is personal preference: I generally like brawny structures (because I'm a woman?) and Simmons Hall feels wonderful to me, not at all overbearing, though I can see that others would feel that way.
mau's post of the Horizontal Skyscraper: I actually find it a bit clumsy. I don't think the exterior materials changes are handled well.
But, keeping the current Maya Lin thread in mind, I can criticize for fun while happily admitting that every single project on this thread is far better than anything I am capable of producing!
I've always understood Holl's work to be foremost about the spatial qualities he is interested in creating. The more recent work seems to continue this focus, albeit at the urban scale rather than the scale of a room or series of rooms. I think this comment corresppnds to simples' observation about the project's(') planning. Frankly, I feel the planning is rightly the priority in the case of Linked Hybrid and the Shenzhen groundscaper linked by mau. Givem the lack of construction oversight probably afforded to Holl's practice, he probably made.a wise decision...cementing the big idea...just a quick thought with some holes in it i'm sure...
just looked at the images again...maybe the context is what makes the scale and vernacular of the "masses" seem oppressive for the "link"...but again, maybe the concept calls for it...
and just to clarify, i actually like Simmons Hall as well (actually quite a bit) although its sense of scale is unsettling to me...but its playfulness carries it through...
The relation of the different towers, in some of the photos and renderings I've seen, has parallax similar to a Donald Judd sculpture. I'd love to cycle/walk the site and photograph. The musicality of Judd's parallax turns my stomach (in the way anxiety at first meeting your perfect lover does), and I'd expect the same from this project.
Yes, it does. Most large firms have superb projects in their portfolio. Honestly, I find KPF's monograph as inspiring, for large projects, as anyone (if not more so). Peter Pran and NBBJ is another, although he is arguably a star.
The big difference is that there are no pretty sketches, no pretty drawings to accompany the building. No post rationalized bs, nothing, just a building functioning as it was intended, for the client, by the architect.
A shame, really.
The other big problem is the large firms make so much crap and it all seems to get publicized equally.
that zig-zag path through the water (in the photos) makes me uncomfortable just looking at it - looks like something an student/intern would design... the site plan that AP posted seems very different than what was executed...
trace, what kind of post-rationalizing BS comes from Holl re: this project?
I've always thought of Holl as a minimal BSer, who relies honestly and transparently on intuition and materials, without piling a bunch of thinkey fluff on top (or else I have so little patience for that fluff that I just never bothered reading it).
toaster, I too find that zigzag path distressing and claustrophobic - if it was twice as wide, I think it would be fine.
Also: the 6th picture in, the close-up of the TinkerToy connector, where the GWB ceiling drops down and is carved around the circular pin: no. It makes me think "Oops" and that is not a term I want popping into my brain when I'm on a bridge 18 stories up. I realize how ridiculously anal it is of me to neurote about 1" of drywall in a mulit-million SF project, but...I do.
But overall, I love this project. I'd love to go see it.
I was just speaking generally. Nothing personal against post rationalized bs, btw, it is a simple product of design (and the process of convincing other parties of its validity and purpose).
I only have trouble with the bs when there is no substance to the design. Holl certainly doesn't fall into that category, I've always thought his architecture had a certain tactile depth to it, a real tangible meaning behind decisions.
LB, I knew something looked wrong with that photo!
The other thing I didn't like about the same scene that you're talking about is (I know this is China and ADA doesn't apply) but where is the wheelchair ramp?!
The only comment I really had to make was that I hate the colors on the undersides and the inside of the window boxes. I think the color on the small pill shaped buildings is fine though.
Yes, it's on the cover of Record this month and my love for this project keeps growing. Every time I walk past the magazine on my coffee table and see the cover image my heart beats a little faster...
Steven Holl talks about this building in one of the episodes of the pbs series "Design e2" from 2008 (the one that was narrated by Brad Pitt), starting at about 13 minutes in:
It looks to me like an absolutely horrible place to live. Even if the building were a beautiful thing to look at (which it isn't imo), what's up with that central court? It could have been a place for people to relax, play, dine, LIVE. Instead it is a big reflecting pool, with rat-maze catwalks. It looks bleak as hell to me.
This is my favorite photo:
Caption: "Even when faced with the bleak realities of the dystopian city of the future, the citizens found ways to retain tiny bits of their humanity"
Alternate caption: "Where the hell is the entrance?"
Maybe I'm completely misconstruing the photos, but... if this is the future of urban housing, count me out.
Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid
How freaking awesome is this building?
Best Tall Building
Pretty much everything about the building points to me not liking it: huge, slick, iconic, pulls life up off the street into private enclaves. But it's so alluring, I can't resist. Beautiful to look at - and I'm sure it delivers as one moves through it as well.
are the bridges actually open to the public?
i think the only thing that kills it for me are the soffits. in the models/renderings, weren't they porous, too?
the social condenser aspect is highly intriguing. though how does this play with the communist regime? is it antagonistic?
could be interesting if those bridges has function, like a jogging trail or reading area for club house, otherwise not much to talk about.
aha!
via holl's website:
From the 12th to the 18th floor a multi-functional series of skybridges with a swimming pool, a fitness room, a café, a gallery, auditorium and a mini salon connects the eight residential towers and the hotel tower, and offers spectacular views over the unfolding city. Programmatically this loop aspires to be semi-lattice-like rather than simplistically linear. We hope the public sky-loop and the base-loop will constantly generate random relationships. They will function as social condensers resulting in a special experience of city life to both residents and visitors.
The article says the bridges contain "public functions", so I assume they are public in the same way an American mall is, that is, not actually public, but giving the impression of being so.
The subtlety of it must be what I love. Those tiny bits of triangulation in the facade.
Construction shots and a sadly-too-small map of the bridges on DeZeen, a year ago.
perhaps the capitol of skybridges, Twin Cities, could learn a bit bout them there thingys....
that was his concept once said by holl
yeah i saw that somewhere to aspect,
remember where?
i'm pretty sure that if it is a private real estate, public means for those who paid $$$ for the apartment.
i think i saw that in utube interview regarding the painting.
Sure it looks fantastic in pictures, what building doesnt? However, those pictures don't really tell the story. I went to an exhibition last weekend at the Grand MOMA located in the finished wing of the "linked hybrid". What stood out was the detailing and craft in the complex is absolutely HORRIBLE. Blame it on shoddy construction or poor detailing by Holl + staff but it looks like it had been thrown together to meet a developers deadline. Aside from the obvious physical disparities, the social condition that Holl hopes to create i.e. a "contemporary hutong" is ludicrous. These culturally rich communities, ironically he demolished one to build this monstrosity, will not function as a public space but as stated previously a private enclave that turns its back on the area.
Now it isn't all bad, the courtyard condition is quite beautiful and a very relaxing getaway from the hustle and bustle of Beijing. I did manage to get a tour of an apartment and it certainly met the expectation of a new development by a western architect. So if you want to live outside 3rd ring rd and avoid all that goes along with that lifestyle then the linked hybrid is a change of pace. Just don't buy into the BS of this being a "contemporary hutong" or having any real connection to the community.
i didn't know he wanted it to be contemp hutong. not possible really, is it?
it doesn't seem to turn its back in the photos. the edges are rather porous all things considered...pretty much just what a semi-public urban space should be really - open but not too inviting....
whatever the quality of the craftsmanship, the planning is clearly much better than standard for china today. much better than standard in most countries to be honest. and that is an accomplishment at least.
i have to admit his project here in tokyo (in makuhari) was also a let-down. the planning again was quite good but the whole did not work somehow. couldn't say why, except that the masterplan for the area was not particulalrly good. perhaps this project falls down a bit for the same reason?
The subtlety I'm liking is in the facade - the projections, and the cross-bracing, and the color. Of course what I call subtlety detractors of modern architecture would call boring or inhumane.
The housing blocks visible in the background are boring.
I'm sorry to hear the craftsmanship isn't as good as it could be. I hope it holds up over time.
aspect,
yeah i think you are right. Maybe on Charlie Rose
Love Holl, love the bridges, but the rest just looks like a box to me (not unlike other large boxes he's done).
Rendering/model images look better at the pedestrian level, maybe we'll see more photos from this level. Need to see how active those bridges will actually be.
i'm pretty sure the word"contemporary hutong" will appear at every cover of the sales brochure...
at least he didn't use "green xxx" or "eco_xxx", everytime i see this real estate sales slogan in china, it makes me pewk...
a few more pics and a site plan in today's designboom email...
plus, a couple of model shots taken in Holl's office by this german dude on flickr (via the designboom comments):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/architekturblog/3697269070/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/architekturblog/3696461131/
for quick reference...
I think there were supposed to be geothermal wells, too? If this ended being the case, I can imagine there will still be "green xxx" and "eco xxx" in the brochures, yet, hehe.
I'm hoping the linked bridge condenser will work out -- I imagine it might've been a challenge to make sure it gets enough activity and business.
Architects' fantasies always very different from reality.
Those very cool looking links could be empty corridors in reality.
i hate this building
mau, why?
those bridges fill with water n u got a swimming pool (rem's style)^^
I'm wondering if they're maintaining the circulation width in them, otherwise it will be a circuit in name only.. it seems easy to imagine they could end up being clumps of program only accessible by the towers immediately adjacent to each end, and to go to another part of the loop you might have to go down the core and come back up in another tower, someplace else. (some of the program elements sound like they'd be kind of closed, but I guess the ideal is for them not to be.)
yeah, if they aren't accessible as one continuous loop then they'd just be a snazzy bridge. I'll hold off on that, though, and assume that Holl and Co. thought of that very thoroughly (or he just added somethign that looks cool, which is ok, as long as they are something worthwhile).
The bridge idea, while certainly not new or original, is cool. It is the big, uniformly banal blocks that I don't like. I look forward to seeing more of the pedestrian level too.
Hi Liberty, just as you find it beautiful to look at, I find it horrendous, I believe it’s a matter of composition, the proportion of the open squares looks too poor to me.
The Dutch have shown us many successful exercises in composition and proportion for banal towers like these that actually result quite pleasing to look at, but these, to me, are just plain ugly.
The urban scheme is much more interesting as it generates that urban-sized inner courtyard, and the whole compound certainly is a contribution to the public space and the city as it is easily readable as a whole. But if, those bridges don’t work, oh my god !!
In general it’s that maybe I just don’t like Holl’s aesthetics when built, I much prefer him as a watercolorist.
I remember seeing some renderings or sketches of the interiors of the bridges, and it seemed like they really had the right idea (I think the program was unspecified in those sketches, and it was just articulation of the space)..
this one is also very successful as urban space, and is not such an eyesore, check the generous article
http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/steven-holl-in-shenzhen/
:)
ok, now I like that one! Give me mega cantilevers!! Oh yeah!
holl unsettles me with his sense of scale...the planning seems interesting to me, but the dialogue of the link and the masses seem out of balance to me...the masses, even with the color, cross bracing, projections seem overbearing to me...again, the sense of scale (read m.i.t.) - the planning for it does seem successful, but his concept (and i am seeing some political cynicism in it, right?) begs for balance and harmony, and i can't find it in the images...
i should mention i have a love/hate relationship with s.holl's architecture....
mauone's link though...that seems very promising (although it reminded me immediately of morphosis student center at uofcincinnatti)
Holl has never been great at formal designs. He always seems to fumble with things, leaving awkward additions, strange shapes, etc. It is like he wants to have the natural talent of Gehry or Hadid, but just can't get there.
That said, his use of light and materials far outweigh his clumsy formal attempts, imho.
I don't know, simples, and trace. Zaha's work mostly feels awkward to me - for example, the way the Austrian train stations meet the ground - or rather, the graceless concrete bases - is really, REALLY uncomfortable. The contrast between "lightness" and foundation is not only not resolved, but totally ignored.
That said, a lot of it is personal preference: I generally like brawny structures (because I'm a woman?) and Simmons Hall feels wonderful to me, not at all overbearing, though I can see that others would feel that way.
mau's post of the Horizontal Skyscraper: I actually find it a bit clumsy. I don't think the exterior materials changes are handled well.
But, keeping the current Maya Lin thread in mind, I can criticize for fun while happily admitting that every single project on this thread is far better than anything I am capable of producing!
I've always understood Holl's work to be foremost about the spatial qualities he is interested in creating. The more recent work seems to continue this focus, albeit at the urban scale rather than the scale of a room or series of rooms. I think this comment corresppnds to simples' observation about the project's(') planning. Frankly, I feel the planning is rightly the priority in the case of Linked Hybrid and the Shenzhen groundscaper linked by mau. Givem the lack of construction oversight probably afforded to Holl's practice, he probably made.a wise decision...cementing the big idea...just a quick thought with some holes in it i'm sure...
just looked at the images again...maybe the context is what makes the scale and vernacular of the "masses" seem oppressive for the "link"...but again, maybe the concept calls for it...
and just to clarify, i actually like Simmons Hall as well (actually quite a bit) although its sense of scale is unsettling to me...but its playfulness carries it through...
The relation of the different towers, in some of the photos and renderings I've seen, has parallax similar to a Donald Judd sculpture. I'd love to cycle/walk the site and photograph. The musicality of Judd's parallax turns my stomach (in the way anxiety at first meeting your perfect lover does), and I'd expect the same from this project.
Holl for the Pritzker.
Photos:
http://www.iwan.com/photo_Steven_Holl_Linked_Hybrid_Beijing_Housing.php
Let's say if this building was done by RTKL, Gensler or Ellerbe Becker?, would we still care?
At least I wouldn't.
Because this is from S. Holl, that's why I've forced myself to take a deeper look. Still I don't like it.
Designer brand name matters....
Yes, it does. Most large firms have superb projects in their portfolio. Honestly, I find KPF's monograph as inspiring, for large projects, as anyone (if not more so). Peter Pran and NBBJ is another, although he is arguably a star.
The big difference is that there are no pretty sketches, no pretty drawings to accompany the building. No post rationalized bs, nothing, just a building functioning as it was intended, for the client, by the architect.
A shame, really.
The other big problem is the large firms make so much crap and it all seems to get publicized equally.
pictures, even great pictures can only do so much no?
that zig-zag path through the water (in the photos) makes me uncomfortable just looking at it - looks like something an student/intern would design... the site plan that AP posted seems very different than what was executed...
trace, what kind of post-rationalizing BS comes from Holl re: this project?
I've always thought of Holl as a minimal BSer, who relies honestly and transparently on intuition and materials, without piling a bunch of thinkey fluff on top (or else I have so little patience for that fluff that I just never bothered reading it).
toaster, I too find that zigzag path distressing and claustrophobic - if it was twice as wide, I think it would be fine.
Also: the 6th picture in, the close-up of the TinkerToy connector, where the GWB ceiling drops down and is carved around the circular pin: no. It makes me think "Oops" and that is not a term I want popping into my brain when I'm on a bridge 18 stories up. I realize how ridiculously anal it is of me to neurote about 1" of drywall in a mulit-million SF project, but...I do.
But overall, I love this project. I'd love to go see it.
I was just speaking generally. Nothing personal against post rationalized bs, btw, it is a simple product of design (and the process of convincing other parties of its validity and purpose).
I only have trouble with the bs when there is no substance to the design. Holl certainly doesn't fall into that category, I've always thought his architecture had a certain tactile depth to it, a real tangible meaning behind decisions.
LB, I knew something looked wrong with that photo!
The other thing I didn't like about the same scene that you're talking about is (I know this is China and ADA doesn't apply) but where is the wheelchair ramp?!
The only comment I really had to make was that I hate the colors on the undersides and the inside of the window boxes. I think the color on the small pill shaped buildings is fine though.
Yes, it's on the cover of Record this month and my love for this project keeps growing. Every time I walk past the magazine on my coffee table and see the cover image my heart beats a little faster...
Steven Holl talks about this building in one of the episodes of the pbs series "Design e2" from 2008 (the one that was narrated by Brad Pitt), starting at about 13 minutes in:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/23336/design-e2-china-from-red-to-green
Monotonal dressing in blue, not black - love it.
and the scarf? ;)
This building freaks me out.
It looks to me like an absolutely horrible place to live. Even if the building were a beautiful thing to look at (which it isn't imo), what's up with that central court? It could have been a place for people to relax, play, dine, LIVE. Instead it is a big reflecting pool, with rat-maze catwalks. It looks bleak as hell to me.
This is my favorite photo:
Caption: "Even when faced with the bleak realities of the dystopian city of the future, the citizens found ways to retain tiny bits of their humanity"
Alternate caption: "Where the hell is the entrance?"
Maybe I'm completely misconstruing the photos, but... if this is the future of urban housing, count me out.
Steven Holl for Pritzker 2011.
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