Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is an American architect and watercolorist, perhaps best known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, the 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the celebrated 2007 Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the praised 2009 Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing, China.

Early works

Kiasma, Helsinki, 1993-1998

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 translation of "chiasma."

Career

Steven Holl's design for Simmons Hall of MIT won the Harleston Parker Medal in 2004.

Bloch Addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy, Norway.

Holl graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in 1970. In 1976, he attended graduate school at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and established his offices New York City. Holl has taught at Columbia University since 1981.

Holl's architecture has undergone a shift in emphasis, from his earlier concern with typology to his current concern with a phenomenological approach; that is, with a concern for man's existentialist, bodily engagement with his surroundings. The shift came about partly due to his interest in the writings of philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and architect-theorist Juhani Pallasmaa.

Recognition and awards
In 1998, Holl was awarded the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal. In 2000, Holl was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In July 2001, Time named Holl America’s Best Architect, for "buildings that satisfy the spirit as well as the eye." Other awards and distinctions include the New York American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor (1997), the French Grande Médaille d’Or (2001), the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture (2002), Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2003), the Arnold W. Brunner Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2008 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Arts category.

In 2007, Steven Holl Architects received the AIA Institute Honor Award and the AIA New York Chapter Architecture Merit Award for Art Building West for the School of Art and Art History (University of Iowa, Iowa City). The Higgins Hall Insertion at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York) and the New Residence at the Swiss Embassy both received the AIA New York Chapter Architecture Honor Award in 2007. In 2010, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (Herning, Denmark) was awarded the RIBA International Award. The Horizontal Skyscraper-Vanke Center received the 2011 AIA Institute National Honor Award, as well as the AIA NY Honor Award. In 2011, he was named a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council., and Holl was named the 2012 AIA Gold Medal winner.

Notable works

Bellevue Arts Museum, Washington

Pratt Institute Higgins Hall, Brooklyn, NY

Bloch Building expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri

Hybrid Building, Seaside, Florida (1984–88)
Berlin AGB Library, Berlin, Germany (entry for a competition in 1988)
Void Space Housing, Nexus World, Fukuoka, Japan (1989–91)
Stretto House, Dallas, Texas (1989–92)
Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York City (1992–93)
Chapel of St. Ignatius (at Seattle University), Seattle, Washington (1994–97)

Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1993–98)
Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (1993–98)
Sarphatistraat Offices, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1996–2000)
Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, Washington (2001)
Ralph Rapson Hall, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (2002)
Pratt Institute Higgins Hall Insertion, Brooklyn, NY (1997–2005)
Lake Whitney Water Purification Facility and Park, Connecticut (1998-2005)

Turbulence House, New Mexico (2001–05)
Planar House (Cottle Residence), Paradise Valley, Arizona (2002–05)
School of Art and Art History, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa (1999–2006)

Residence of the Ambassador of Switzerland, Washington, DC (2006)
Bloch Building expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (1999–2007)
Linked Hybrid, Beijing (2003–09)

Knut Hamsun Centre (Hamsunsenteret), Nordland, Norway (1994–2009)
Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark (2005–2009)
Horizontal Skyscraper - Vanke Center, Shenzhen, China (2006-2009)
Cite de l'Ocean et du Surf, Biarritz, France (2005–2011), in collaboration with Solange Fabiao

Daeyang Gallery and House, Seoul, South Korea (2008-2012)
Nanjing Museum of Contemporary Art, Nanjing (2003–12)
Campbell Sports Center at Columbia University, New York, NY (2008-2012)
PhD Building, National University of Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia (2012)
Sliced Porosity Block - CapitaLand Raffles City Chengdu, Chengdu, China (2007-2012)

 Recent competition success
'Sail Hybrid' casino development, Knokke-Heist, Belgium (2005)
'Horizontal Skyscraper', Vanke Center, Shenzhen, China (2006)
'Meander', Taivallahti Residential Area, Helsinki, Finland (2006)
LM Project, Copenhagen, Denmark (2008)
Glasgow School of Art, new art building, Scotland (2009)
Hangzhou Music Museum, Hangzhou, China (2009)
'Shan-Shui' masterplan, Hangzhou, China (2010)
Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, Virginia (2012)
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas