Book Description
Built as a diary, the 365 watercolors reproduced in Written in Water represent the creative process of famed American architect Steven Holl. Holl's highly individual method of capturing in watercolors his initial ideas and sketches for all major buildings and competition projects was developed over many years. As an architect, Holl is known for the sculptural qualities he gives to structures and for his genuine use of light--two qualities which are in tune with the characteristics of the watercolor technique. Among the increasingly high-tech working methods common to his profession, Steven Holl's reliance on a highly artistic and resolutely low-tech process becomes spectacular and inspirational.
Edited by Lars Müller.
Text by Steven Holl.
Hardcover, 400 pages, 365 color images.
About the author
Born in 1947 in Washington State and raised in the cloudy Pacific Northwest, Steven Holl designs understated buildings that traffic in beauty and illumination. His first structure was a 400-square foot sculpture studio and pool house built in 1980 in New York. Since then, he has gone on to design dozens of award-winning buildings for university campuses and urban settings in the United States, Finland, and Japan, including a new wing for the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute in New York; Void Space/Hinged Space Housing in Fukuoka, Japan; Kiasma, the Helsinki contemporary art museum for which he received the Alvar Aalto Medal from the Finnish Association of Architects; and his famous Chapel of Saint Ignatius at Seattle University. Holl currently lives and works in New York, where he is a professor of architecture at Columbia University. His most recent project is a major addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, scheduled for completion in 2004.
