Holl was born on December 9, 1947, and grew up in Bremerton and Manchester, Washington.[4] He is the son of Myron Holl of Washington state and Helen Mae Holl of Alabama.[5] He has described his father as "full blooded Norwegian".[6] Holl received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington (department of architecture) in 1971.[7][8]
Holl is a tenured professor at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1981[13] with Dimitra Tsachrelia.[14] He frequently teaches on the relationship between music and architecture.[15]
'T' Space
In 2010, Holl founded 'T' Space, a multidisciplinary arts organization in Rhinebeck, New York. The core aim of 'T' Space is to create educational fusions of art, architecture, music, and poetry of the 21st century. The organization operates a summer exhibition series and an emerging architects summer residency in pursuit of their mission.[16]
The 'T' Space Synthesis of the Arts Series explores the intersection of art, architecture, and ecology through 2 to 3 exhibitions of work by emerging and established artists and architects. As of its 2019 season, 'T' Space has exhibited architects José Oubrerie, Tatiana Bilbao, and Neil Denari,[17] as well as artists such as Ai Weiwei, Pat Steir, and Brice Marden.[18]
In 2017, 'T' Space began offering a summertime residency program for young architects and artists.[19] Program participants design purpose-built architecture with a curriculum emphasizing the ecological outcomes of design. During project development, the residents participate in pin-ups, field trips, and a public lecture series, from architects including Christian Wassmann, Christoph Kumpusch, Tamas Nagy, and Holl himself.[20][21]
In addition to its arts and educational programming, 'T' Space maintains a publication program and a 30-acre nature reserve with outdoor installations of art and architecture. In 2019, construction was completed on 'T' Space's architectural archive and research library. T-Space houses Holl's work as a watercolorist, as well as models, drawings and other architectural materials developed in Holl's 40-plus years as principal of Steven Holl Architects.[22]
Holl won first prize in the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek International Library Design Competition in 1988, an expansion and renovation of the
American Memorial Library in Berlin. In February, 1989 Holl's work was exhibited in a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. MoMA later purchased twenty-five works by Holl for the museum's permanent collection. In the 1992 competition for a new contemporary arts museum in Helsinki, Finland, Holl's entry, entitled "Chiasma," won first prize out of more than five hundred international entries. The museum opened to the public in 1998, having permanently adopted the name "Kiasma," the Finnish transliteration of "chiasma."
In designing the Chapel of St. Ignatius (built 1994–1997), Jesuit chapel at Seattle University, Holl addressed the campus's need for green space by siting the chapel in the center of a former street and elongating the building plan. New green campus quadrangles were formed to the north, west, and south, and a future quadrangle is planned to the east.[23] In 1997, the plan of the chapel won a design award in the American Institute of Architects of New York. Holl designed the Chapel around St. Ignatius's vision of the inner spiritual life, "seven bottles of light in a stone box", by creating seven volumes of different light. Each volume represents a different part of Jesuit Catholic worship, and has differently colored glass so that various parts of the building are marked out by colored light. Light sources are tinted both in this way and by indirect reflection from painted surfaces, and each is paired with its complementary color. In 2022, the American Institute of Architects bestowed the Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle, WA, with the prestigious Twenty-five Year 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.
Fred Rush, On Architecture, Routledge, London and New York, 2007.
Scott Drake, “The Chiasm and the experience of space”, JAE, Nov. 2005, vol.59, iss. 2, 53–59.
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.
