Steven Holl Biography

American architect and theoretician Steven Holl (1947) is one of the best-known and most influential designers of the modern age thanks to his projects developed mostly in New york city and in the Orient (China, Japan, South Korea).
After graduating from Seattle University and studying in London and Rome, he opened Steven Holl Architects in New York in 1976.
In his large production Holl synthesises "philosophical thinking and design methodologies" in research study which is at the very same time "experience and criticism" (Heck-Chiarone).
In his essential essay Anchoring (1989 ), Holl specifies the "dialectic relationships" in between places and structures: clear examples include his New York tasks of the eighties, which brought his studio popularity and recognition.
His Pool House in New York (1981) and in the Museum of Modern Art Apartment (1986) reveal the constructions' geographical and historic aspects; his showroom for the Pace Collection (1986) plainly reveals the poetics of the De Stjil motion. His offices for D.E. Shaw & Co (1992) and high impact façade for the Storefront for Art and Architecture (1993) are likewise deserving of note.
His jobs in Europe consist of the highly experimental Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki.
Holl has designed many crucial single-family houses (Berkowitz-Odgis House, Stretto House) and housing complexes, including several in Japan: deep space Space in Fukuoka (1991 ), in which Holl underlines the "space" of Buddhist cosmology, and the 190 Makuhari Bay units in Chiba (1996 ).
His present tasks in China have actually had a great social impact: the Culture and Art Center in Qingdao City and the Ecocity Ecology-Planning Museums in the country's first environmental city (Tianjin Eco City).