Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947, Bremerton, Washington) is an American academic architect and watercolorist best known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, the 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., and the recently completed Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing, China. In June 2007 the much celebrated Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri opened to the public.

Career

Holl graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in 1970. In 1976, he joined the Architectural Association in London and established his offices New York City, and has taught at Columbia University since 1981.

Holl's architecture has undergone a shift in emphasis, from his earlier concern with typology to his current concern with a phenomenological approach; that is, with a concern for man's existentialist, bodily engagement with his surroundings. The shift came about partly due to his interest in the writings of philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and architect-theorist Juhani Pallasmaa.

In 1998 Holl was awarded the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal. In 2000, Holl was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In July 2001 Time Magazine named Steven Holl as America’s Best Architect, for 'buildings that satisfy the spirit as well as the eye.' Awards include the 2008 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Arts category, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2003), the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture (2002), the French Grande Médaille d’Or (2001), the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal (1998), the Arnold W. Brunner Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the New York American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor (1997). Most recently Steven Holl Architects the School of Art & Art History (University of Iowa, Iowa City) received the AIA 2007 Institute Honor Award for and the AIA New York Chapter 2007 Merit Architecture Award. The Center Section at the Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York) and the New Residence at the Swiss Embassy both received the AIA New York Chapter 2007 Honor Architecture Award.



Along with Pallasmaa and Alberto Perez-Gomez, Holl wrote essays for a 1994 special issue of the Japanese architectural journal A+U under the title Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture. The publication was reissued as a book in 2006.

Notable works

• Expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.
• School of Art and Art History, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
• Linked Hybrid Housing, Beijing.
• Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Helsinki (1993-1998).
• Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.[141401]
• Planar House (Cottle Residence), Paradise Valley, Arizona.
• Turbulence House, New Mexico.
• Stretto House, Dallas, Texas (1989-82).
• Chapel of St. Ignatius (at Seattle University), Seattle, Washington (1994-97).
• Sarphatistraat Offices, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington.
• Pratt Institute Higgins Hall Center Section, Brooklyn, NY.
• Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York City.
• Hybrid Building, Seaside, Florida (1984-88).
• Berlin AGB Library, Berlin, Germany (entry for a competition in 1988).
• Void Space Housing, Nexus World, Fukuoka, Japan (1989-91).
• Residence of the Ambassador of Switzerland, Washington, DC (2006).
• College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (2002).

Recent competition success

• 'Sail Hybrid' casino development, Knokke-Heist, Belgium (2005).
• 'Floating Skyscraper', Vanke Center, Shenzhen, China (2006).
• 'Meander', Taivallahti Residential Area, Helsinki, Finland (2006).
• LM Project, Copenhagen, Denmark (2008)

References

• Scott Drake, “The Chiasm and the experience of space”, JAE, Nov. 2005, vol.59, iss. 2, 53-59.
• Steven Holl, “Educating our Perception”, in “Magic Materials II”, Daidalos, August 1995.
• Steven Holl, Parallax, Birkhauser, New York, 2000.
• Steven Holl, Pamphlet Architecture 1-10. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1998.
• Steven Holl, The Chapel of St.Ignatius. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999.
• Alberto Perez-Gomez, Juhani Pallasmaa, Steven Holl, Questions of Perception. Phenomenology of Architecture, William K. Stout Pub., San Francisco, 2006 (2nd edition).
• Alberto Perez-Gomez, “The architecture of Steven Holl: In search of a poetry of specifics”, El Croquis 93, 1999.
• Philip Jodidio, Architecture Now!, Icons, Taschen,New York, 2002.
• Gareth Griffiths, "Steven Holl and His Critics", Ptah, Helsinki, 2006.

Further reading

• Nancy Marmer, "Holl's Kiasma Debuts in Helsinki," Art in America, October 1998, p. 35.

External links

• Steven Holl Architect's website
• The Stretto House by Steven Holl (with drawings)
• The Chapel of St. Ignatius
• Modern Furniture website
• Photographs of Architect Steven Holl Designed Modern Home in Dallas, Texas
• Photos of the Nelson Atkins Museum Bloch Building
• Steven Holl, Projects
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards