"The Architects Series - A documentary on: Steven Holl Architects" is the 14th episode in a series of lectures and interviews created by The Plan magazine for Iris Ceramica Group which will be live streamed on Thursday, October 29 2020, from 6.00pm to 8-00pm on Holding’s digital platform webcast.irisceramicagroup.com. A new method to access content that overcomes geographical boundaries and enables wider audience participation while maintaining the same opportunities for interaction as in-person lectures.
The approximately 30 minute video-documentary screening will be followed by a lecture entitled “Air/Light/Greenspace: Post-COVID” during which the audience can discover Steven Holl Architects’ poetic vision, philosophy and design approach and also engage with the speaker.
Founded in 1977 by Steven Holl, the practice is recognized internationally for the quality and excellence of its architectural achievements and innovative urban design. Leading a staff of 40 employees, Steven Holl is supported by Partners Chris McVoy, Noah Yaffe and Roberto Bannura in managing the New York and Beijing offices. With projects worldwide, the Studio’s body of work includes master planning and the design of residential and office buildings, detached housing and structures in the world of the arts, culture and education, a sector where it has extensive experience.
Steven Holl has developed a highly personal vision of architecture in which a multi-cultural background, strong propensity for a multidisciplinary approach and ability to tailor the design process to varying local surroundings combine to create unique works clearly distinguishable from contemporary building concepts.
Holl’s philosophy sees architecture as an experience shaped by time, light and materials where various physical and sensory elements have integral relationships, and shape formalistic, spatial solutions. In this complex unifying relationship, light in particular has a functional role but also, and above all, an ability to enhance materials and facilitate the building’s perspective in intersecting solids and voids.
Steven Holl Architects’ wealth of thought and poetic vision is best explained in 7 key points that define and illustrate the design principles of the studio and project objectives:
1. Purpose-Driven
Steven Holl Architects is a purpose-driven atelier. We aim for an architecture which aspires to thought, connecting with all the arts and the human condition today.
2. Social Condensers
We aim to realize buildings as social condensers, inspiring the interaction of people and their communities, rather than simply fulfilling a program.
3. Natural Light and Proportions
Capturing naturai light in inspired spatial sequences remains a core aim of our work as well as proportions realized with our “fine tuners” at 1:1.618.
4. Materials and Details
With each project we are inspired to create inventive details and experiment with new materials. Natural weathering extends principles of wabi-sabi, or beauty which is ever changing, yielding buildings which look better in time (such as our 25-year-old Void Space/ Hinged Space Housing in Fukuoka, Japan).
5. Collectiveness
Our collaborative design process engages all in collective creation and building, with inspired working teams for each of our projects.
6. Ecological Innovation
Ecological innovation is a core aim in all our work.
(The 660-well heating and cooling system, the largest residential geothermal system in the world, at our Linked Hybrid, Beijing, is still excellent after 10 years.)
7. Anchoring
The making of a place continues a manifesto launched in our 1989 Museum of Modern Art Exhibition. “Architecture does not so much intrude on the landscape as it serves to explain it. Architecture and site should have an experiential connection, a metaphysical link, a poetic link.”
A combination of disciplines and input, reflection and inspiration of a philosophical nature has led to Steven Holl Architects creating impressive yet inclusive projects, imposing yet at the same time respectful of the existing surroundings. Among their numerous projects, the best known are unquestionably the Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum Helsinki, Finland (1998), Simmons Hall at the MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2003), Bloch Building, Kansas City (2007), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, (Missouri), and the above-mentioned Linked Hybrid in Beijing, China (2009) and Void Space, Fukuoka (1991).
Steven Holl has won the most prestigious architecture awards including the Japan Art Association Praemium Imperiale Award for Architecture (2014), AIA (American Institute of Architects) Gold Medal (2012), RIBA Jencks Award (2010), BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2009), Grande Médaille d’Or, French Academy of Architecture (2001) and Alvar Aalto Medal (1998).
The course is under approval by AIA CES-USA and RIBA CPD-UK for learning units recognition and approved by CNACPP for accreditation 2 CFP, Crediti Formativi Professionali - Italy only.WEBINAR:
Thursday, October 29, 2020
6.00pm CEST (1.00pm US EST) / Welcome and screening of the documentary: "The Architects Series – A documentary on: Steven Holl Architects"
6.30pm Lecture: “Air/Light/Greenspace: Post-COVID” with Steven Holl