Parallax [Paperback]

Steven Holl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2000

What makes Steven Holl one of the most celebrated architects working today? As we learn in Parallax, his success comes from his sculptural form making, his interest in the poetics of space, color, and materiality, and his fascination with scientific phenomena. Holl reveals his working methods in this, his biggest and most ambitious book yet on his work-part treatise, part manifesto, and part, as Holl writes, "liner notes" to fifteen recent projects, some never before published.

Parallax traces Holl's ideas on topics as diverse as the "chemistry of matter" and the "pressure of light," and shows how they emerge in his architectural work: "strange attractors" at Cranbrook, "porosity" in his new dormitory at MIT, "tripleness" in the new Bellevue Art Museum in Washington. The result is a book that provides a personal tour of the work of one of the world's most esteemed architects.

Parallax is designed by Michael Rock of the award-winning design firm 2x4. It is our fourth book on Holl's work, following Anchoring, Intertwining, and The Chapel of St. Ignatius.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Steven Holl is probably a pretty cool architect. With its clean, racy curves both inside and out, his recent Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (and biggest project to date) in Helsinki looks like an artfully cut-out chunk of a late '50s sports car, or better yet--given its minty-blue tones and au courant materials--a huge iMac. His very intimate Chapel of St. Ignatius in Seattle (about which he published a previous book, The Chapel of St. Ignatius; he's also put out Anchoring and Intertwining), with its exterior reflecting pool and beguiling interior play of light, curves, and color couldn't be more iconoclastic for a Catholic house of worship, yet it exudes a queer grace in the same spirit as Le Corbusier's famous Chapel at Ronchamp. And surely the banks of Boston's Charles River have never seen anything like the dormitory complex Noll has designed for MIT--the model of which, included here, promises a multicube city unto itself with an intricate, discontinuous façade of overlapping grids and screens, so radical in concept that it defies written description (or a really good one, at any rate).

And yet the reason why the very chicly designed Parallax (with a list price of $40, it's probably the world's most expensive cardboard-covered book) only probably affirms that Holl is a cool architect is that there are simply not enough full-color photographs of his completed work here to tell. Holl is a very conceptual architect, and most of the pages here contain what he refers to as his "liner notes" on his projects--leaden, humorless meditations on such themes as "chemistry of matter," "pressure of light," "strange attractors," and "porosity" as they relate to his work. Beyond that, there's a profusion of computer renderings, simple sketches, and tiny black-and-white photographs of small portions that, alas, also do very little to illuminate his work for the reader.

What little color photography is offered here is excellent, going a long way even in its paucity toward suggesting why Holl has already created a stir (and you can click on our unique Look inside this book! link below the cover image to get a sense of it). Just one limited shot of even a modest project like his 1996 Ikebana House in Makuhari, Japan, seizes the eye with its almost astonishing manipulation of color, texture, and curvature, leaving the beholder hungry for more. If you're already familiar with Holl's work and really curious about his scientific-minded musings on them, you'll appreciate Parallax. Otherwise, keep your fingers crossed that in the next book of his work, Holl shows more and tells less. --Timothy Murphy

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1st ed. 2001. 2nd printing edition (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568982615
• ISBN-13: 978-1568982618
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,270 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Architectural light, December 7, 2000

By 

Steven Walton (Tahoe City, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parallax (Paperback)

Steven Holl's Parallax is the most insiteful handheld account into the world of architecture in some time. Taking architecture to the next realm, Holl has allowed the reader to better understand his process of design through excellent photography and thought provoking essays. More than just describing his latest projects, he uses these projects to illustrate and explain his most fundamental design philosophies.

This handbook for bundle of informatiion is a must have for the architect of the future.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars never leaves my bag, March 11, 2002

By 

Bernard (Long Island, The Bahamas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parallax (Paperback)

the most inspirational book i have ever had the pleasure of reading. as a student i would always depend on this book to help me when i got stuck on a design problem. holl uses connections between essays and real projects to inspire one to think. he does not slap you in the face with some lofty design philosophy of his. he lets you try to make the connections.
this forces you as a designer to think and develope your own ideas without being controlled by what he is doing.
must have for architectural students

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Holl's Project Breakdown, October 14, 2003

By 

Stephanie (Lawrence, KS United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parallax (Paperback)

This is a fabulous book for any architect. Holl breaks down the concepts behind his projects and includes several watercolors and photos that provided inspiration for his work. As an architecture student, I found this book to be a wonderful tool to understanding parti and concept.