Case Study One: Steven Holl, Bloch Addition
The Bloch Addition, often described as “the Feather”, is an exploration of space
through the affect of light. A unique juxtaposition to the static existing Nelson Art
Gallery building, the light-gathering lenses strung down the hillside integrate a
sensitive, experiential journey into the site’s fabric. Holl’s flowing program circulation
and structural design allows infused day lighting opportunity throughout the galleries.
The envelope of channel glass glows in the night and a permits ambient light during the
day and its language is extended throughout the building. Phenomenological
experience of space and material seem to be highlighted with cooperation of light and shadow.
Holl suggests, “the perceptual spirit and metaphysical strength of architecture are driven by the
quality of light and shadow shaped by solids and voids, by opacities, transparencies and
translucencies. Natural light, with its ethereal variety of change, fundamentally orchestrates the
intensities of architecture and cities” (Holl, Pallasmaa, and Perez-Gomez 63).