When it comes to the design process behind architectural projects, brainstorming is never the same for everyone. Some find inspiration in crowded rooms with loud music in the background, some walk around public spaces and observe people’s behaviors, and some need almost no resources whatsoever, just a pen, paper, and complete silence.
In an interview with architecture filmographers Spirit of Space, Steven Holl shares how being completely isolated in the Watercolor Hut contributed to some of his office’s most notable creations.
Sir David Adjaye Studio. Image Courtesy of Design Miami/Architects for Beirut
Design Miami’s latest initiative in partnership with Architects for Beirut, has gathered a collection of 100+ original architectural drawings and artworks donated by 90+ renowned architects from around the world. With proceeds going to aid on-the-ground restoration efforts in Beirut, works offered include exclusive pieces from Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield, Toyo Ito, Steven Holl, Tatiana Bilbao, Adjaye Associates, and Renzo Piano, to name a few.
Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the third gallery building on the MFAH Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus, the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building will open to the public on Saturday, November 21, 2020. Dedicated to the Museum’s international collections of modern and contemporary art, the newest addition will exhibit a wide range of works, ranging from painting and sculpture to craft and design, video, and immersive installations.
Hungarian architect Tamás Nagy, Head of the department of architecture at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, has passed away at 69 years old. Born in Csorna in 1951, he worked as an architect in Budapest and New York before establishing his own architectural office. In this tribute, architect Steven Holl remembers the work and life of Tamás.
The Shanghai Cofco Cultural and Health Center by Steven Holl Architects has topped out. Designed in 2016, the project was designed to become a social condenser, fostering community among the residents of the surrounding new housing blocks with a public space and park along an existing canal. Centering on public space, the projects features an exoskeletal concrete construction.
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building for modern and contemporary art, part of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is scheduled to open for the public on November 1st 2020. The intervention was conceived for the “display of the important and rapidly growing MFAH collections of 20th- and 21st-century art”.
As the founder of Steven Holl Architects, Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is recognized as one of the world's leading architects, having received prestigious awards for his contributions to design over the course of nearly forty years in practice, including the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal in 1998, the AIA Gold Medal in in 2012, and the 2014 Praemium Imperiale. In 1991, Time Magazine named Holl America's Best Architect. He is revered for his ability to harness light to create structures with remarkable sensitivity to their locations, while his written works have been published in many preeminent volumes, sometimes collaborating with world-renowned architectural thinkers such as Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Pérez-Gómez.
New York City now has three buildings by Steven Holl – Higgins Hall Insertion at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn (2005), Campbell Sports Center for Columbia University in Upper Manhattan (2013), and Hunters Point Community Library in Long Island City, Queens that will open its doors to the public on September 24th. The event coincides with publishing Holl’s new book Compression with the Library’s abstracted image on its cover; it is the fifth volume of the architect’s written manifesto, 30-years-in-the-making series by Princeton Architectural Press. The new building, the size of the nearby landmarked Pepsi-Cola red neon sign, is a robust concrete parallelogram distinguished by softly outlined multi-story glazed cut-outs. It sits prominently on a new public promenade just feet away from the East River, directly across the United Nations complex in Midtown Manhattan and the southern tip of the Roosevelt Island with its Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park memorial by Louis Kahn. The new building is at once an iconic reference point, visible from Manhattan’s East Side and the ferries, and although it took nine years to finish, its completion is a positive sign of New York’s commitment to public projects being designed by our best architects.
The REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C. will open to the public this Saturday, September 7th. Designed by Steven Holl Architects with BNIM, the project is the first-ever expansion in the Kennedy Center's 48-year history. Aiming to open the Kennedy Center to the surrounding city and riverfront, the team made the project as a nexus of arts, learning, and culture for people to engage with the performing arts.
Architect and educator Astra Zarina wasn’t just the teacher of Tom Kundig, Ed Weinstein, and Steven Holl (who designed ‘T’ Space); she was also an advocator for public spaces, cohesive urbanity, and the communities that these attributes fostered. ‘T’ Space’s newest exhibit Rome and the Teacher, Astra Zarina celebrates Zarina’s life and teachings in the context of recognizing overlooked pedagogical figures, particularly women. A recent article by Metropolis Magazine describes this exhibit in detail and with it, Zarina’s own life story.
https://www.archdaily.com/922753/t-spaces-new-exhibit-celebrates-the-overlooked-history-of-an-influential-female-architect-and-educatorLilly Cao
Álvaro Siza was born in 1933, on the same year that the Bauhaus closed its doors. He is perhaps the last living modernist or, at the very least, the most significant voice to carry out the unfinished modernist project all the way into the 21st century. 'Siza – Unseen & Unknown' showcases this continuity through 100 sketches, as well as its contradictions. These drawings are from his most personal archive, in addition to small collections of close friends and family. Hence, they focus not only on the professional legacy but also on the familial one, where Maria Antónia Siza (1940–1973)
Architectural photographer Kris Provoost has published his latest series, on the subject of Steven Holl’s Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China. Designed in 2007, and completed five years later, the scheme sought to break the standard typology of Chinese cities, bringing public interaction to new heights. Six years on from the building’s completion, Provoost captured the building immersed in the daily life of Chengdu citizens.
Steven Holl Architects has won a competition for the design of the headquarters for iCarbonX, a genome machine intelligence company in Shenzhen. The scheme comprises of two towers, with the first tower “Body A” forming a residential component, and the second tower, “Body B” containing offices, labs, and public reception spaces. The form of the towers is inspired by the study of genes and DNA.
https://www.archdaily.com/915652/steven-holl-designs-dna-inspired-science-headquarters-in-shenzhenNiall Patrick Walsh
Award-winning architect Steven Holl has expressed his dismay of modern-day architecture to Metropolis Magazine. Although Steven Holl Architects (SHA) have recently won the design competition of a gateway building at University College Dublin, and have completed new buildings in London, Houston, Virginia, and Richmond this past year only, the architect is convinced that regardless of all the success, “it’s not a great moment, there are a lot of bad architects”.
A new video by Milkbox NY showcases Steven Holl's Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. The gateway building has become a major art destination for Richmond at one of the nation’s leading schools of art and design. Designed to serve as an art center for students and the local community, the ICA prompts interaction and discussion around contemporary issues. The new video shows how the project is a forum for the diverse community of Richmond to come together.
Opening its doors last fall, Princeton University's Lewis Arts Complex by Steven Holl Architects and BNIM created a new campus gateway and state-of-the-art facilities for the arts. Expanding performance, rehearsal and teaching spaces, the complex has now been featured in a video directed by Spirit of Space. The footage shows how the building was designed to shape campus space while maximizing porosity and movement. Welcoming its second year of students, the complex is made to take the arts at Princeton to even greater heights.
The Athens Architecture Club seeks to resurrect the historical architecture clubs of the 19th century, functioning as an “open forum, an infrastructural framework, and support platform for architects, artists, and writers to discuss, challenge and enrich a dialogue among practitioners and scholars.
https://www.archdaily.com/900323/drawings-by-tchoban-holl-and-calatrava-among-stunning-entries-for-the-first-athens-architecture-club-exhibitionNiall Patrick Walsh
ArchDaily and Airbnb were both founded in 2008, but for two very different reasons. Since then, ArchDaily has amassed a vast database of tens of thousands of buildings, located in cities and countries all around the world. Meanwhile, Airbnb has revolutionized the way in which we explore these countries, and use these buildings, even if just for one night.
PaulWarchol.jpg?1537282894 "Lewis Arts Complex, Princeton University. Image © Paul Warchol")
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.jpg?1534440166 "Monster / Alessandro Mendini. Image Courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design")
.jpg?1534440176 "View of Lyon / James Von Klemperer. Image Courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design")
.jpg?1534440156 "Concept Sketch of Imperial War Museum North / Daniel Libeskind. Image Courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design")
.jpg?1534440147 "The Dance / Santiago Calatrava. Image Courtesy of The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design")
.jpg?1533734642 "VillaLóla / ARKÍS architects. Image © ARKÍS architects")
