NEW YORK, NY.- Steven Holl Architects announced the release of a new book, Urbanisms: Working with Doubt. Contemporary urban development is increasingly characterized by a reliance on diagrams, maps, and graphs to convey the rational, statistical point of view of the professional urban planner. This volume suggests that just as modern medicine has recognized the power of the irrational psyche, urban planners need to realize that the experiential power of cities cannot be completely rationalized and must be studied subjectively. With a selection of urban and architectural projects from his thirty-year practice, Holl stretches urban planning into the domain of uncertainty, from prose into poetry. Urbanisms examines how perception and the senses are intertwined with the material, space, and light of urban form.
Arguments are illustrated by a catalog of projects organized geographically. Holl explores concepts such as creating cities from pieces or edges; moving in and out of the spaces between a built environment; inserting architectural elements into complex urban situations; constructing small-scale miniurbanisms; and preserving natural landscapes. Urbanisms presents design solutions for diverse locations, including Linked Hybrid in Beijing, China; Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China; Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen, China; Green Urban Laboratory in Nanning, China; Toolenburg Zuid Schiphol, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Fondation Pinault Ile Seguin in Paris, France; and the master plan for M.I.T.'s Vassar Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A comprehensive exploration of each project illustrates this much-celebrated and influential architect's perspective on urban planning.
Other Steven Holl books from Princeton Architectural Press include Anchoring (1989), Intertwining (1996), Parallax (2000), and House: Black Swan Theory (2007).
Steven Holl was born in 1947 in Bremerton, Washington. He graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in 1970. In 1976 he joined the Architectural Association in London and established Steven Holl Architects in New York City. Considered one of America's most important architects, Steven Holl is recognized for his ability to blend space and light with great contextual sensitivity and to utilize the unique qualities of each project to create a concept-driven design. He specializes in seamlessly integrating new projects into contexts with particular cultural and historic importance.
Steven Holl has realized cultural, civic, academic and residential projects internationally and throughout the United States. Notable work includes the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland (1998), The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (2007) and Linked Hybrid in Beijing, China (2009). Steven Holl has been recognized with some of architecture's most prestigious awards and prizes. Most recently Steven Holl Architects’ The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art received the AIA 2008 Design and Building Type Awards and the 2008 AIA Honor Award for Architecture.
