{"id":16825,"date":"2018-11-15T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/architizer.wpengine.com\/steven-holl-poetic-models-to-brilliant-buildings\/"},"modified":"2022-05-19T02:55:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T06:55:27","slug":"steven-holl-poetic-models-to-brilliant-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.arc.ht\/blog\/practice\/materials\/steven-holl-poetic-models-to-brilliant-buildings\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Architecture: Steven Holl on the Search for Fresh Inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Architizer is thrilled to announce the winners of the 10th Annual A+Awards<\/a>! Want to earn global recognition for your projects? Sign up to be notified when the 11th Annual A+Awards<\/a> program launches.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A beautifully crafted block of concrete sits on Steven Holl<\/a>\u2019s desk, its spherical voids formed with characteristic precision. The architect opens a book \u2014 the enigmatically titled Ex of In<\/i> manifesto \u2014 to show me a series of diagrams in watercolor, a unique combination of rational processes crystallized by Holl\u2019s instinctive, evocative brushstrokes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on these spatial tests for two years,\u201d explains the architect, tracing a line with his finger across a striking series of sketches, 3D-printed models, watercolors and a pristine cube of polished walnut, cut with intersecting curves and interrupted by folding planes that stretch across the voids. These studies culminated in Holl\u2019s contribution to the exhibition at Chamber gallery in New York, a collection of experimental studies entitled \u201cUnpacking the Cube.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\n\t\n<\/div>\n\n

Steven Holl\u2019s Ex of In exhibits at Chamber Gallery, New York; <\/i>\u00a9 Steven Holl Architects<\/i><\/p>\n

Together with architecture studios Leong Leong<\/a> and Levenbetts<\/a>, Holl was tasked with deconstructing spatial concepts and the question of scale using the fundamental form of a simple cube. Holl\u2019s Ex of In exhibits \u2014 stunning geometric studies in wood and concrete \u2014 are only a small part of the architect\u2019s explorations into the applications of intersecting volumes and inverted forms to create habitable space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing down at Chamber is our selection from many, many pieces,\u201d explains Holl. \u201cThere are actually 100 models, and five of them were chosen for the exhibit \u2014 but this is a much larger project that we\u2019re doing.\u201d At this point, the architect hits play on a nearby screen, revealing an unexpected and highly dramatic use for these ostensibly abstract models: a theater set created for dancers at Chicago\u2019s Harris Theater, in time for the city\u2019s inaugural architecture biennial.<\/p>\n

As Holl remembers, \u201cWe were asked to do a stage set for the Jessica Lang dance company, and we wanted to inhabit these very spaces.\u201d To create the backdrop for Tesseracts of Time<\/i>, the architect\u2019s models were ingeniously explored with the use of a GoPro camera, and the resulting footage was then projected onto green screens to form an extraordinary, ethereal environment inhabited by Lang\u2019s dancers.
\n