Seoul Man
Steven Holl
Steven Holl
Steven Holl titled his latest book Scale in recognition of the remarkable range in size of his recent work, from a 650-square-foot gallery in Dutchess County, New York, to a 3.3 million-square-foot, mixed-use complex under construction in Chengdu, China. The book (published by Lars Müller) is 5 by 7 inches, the same as the notebooks in which he has been sketching watercolors for the past 30 years. The title also refers to the scale composers use in their art and the role music has played in his body of work. “The book is the size of your hand,” says the architect, who compares the musical staff to our five fingers. Showing the impact of the human hand on his buildings is important to Holl, and he tries to design door pulls and light fixtures in addition to the architecture. “Details are the strange and interesting remarks we make in our work,” he says. “The intensity of architecture is really felt at the level of the detail.”
Designing houses has always been a critical part of his practice, says Holl: “Architecture isn’t about size. It’s about the ideas, the materials, the spatial energy invested in it. Some of the greatest works of architecture are quite small. Just look at Corbusier’s Heidi Weber Pavilion in Zurich.” He admits, though, that “my business manager always complains about us losing money on small projects.”
Music has served as a direct reference in two of Holl’s previous built projects: the Sarphatistraat Offices in Amsterdam (2000) and the Stretto House in Texas (1991). But the music that inspired the Daeyang Gallery and House is different, he says, because it was never played: “We found a way of playing it, though, with light.”
Holl says he struggled with the Daeyang project, in part because the program was vague at first. He looked for ideas in Korean ceramics, but didn’t find the right spark: “This is my first project in Korea. It’s a very intense place with a strong culture and rich heritage of art and design.”
Asked about winning the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal this year, Holl laughs. “I feel I’m still getting started!” Then he adds, “Doing experimental work is still important to me. Teaching is still important to me.” So even though he is working on projects all over the world and at scales large and small, he tries to retain the same process and attitude toward creating architecture. —Clifford A. Pearson