Steven Holl: Drawing as Thought

The work of internationally renowned US architect Steven Holl is distinguished not only by his extraordinary buildings, with a focus on cultural and public structures such as museums, art centres, concert halls, libraries and universities worldwide, but also by his artistic oeuvre, which today comprises more than 50,000 sketches, black-and-white drawings and watercolours. Steven Holl’s international career took off in 1988 when he won the competition for the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek in Berlin. The large-format black-and-white drawings of his winning design are the centerpiece of the exhibition Steven Holl – Drawing as Thought at the Tchoban Foundation’s Museum for Architectural Drawing, as well as the accompanying catalogue. Holl’s work is grounded in his “three principal missions”: art that drives architecture, the necessity of ecological excellence and the significance of space, light, material and detail as experimental phenomena. While catalogue readers and exhibition visitors will only encounter a small portion of his extensive body of work, each drawing should be explored and studied individually, in keeping with Holl’s intent.