Steven Holl's Portfolio of Chinese Projects Examined

By Louise Chen

Originally published: July 28, 2010

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/35333/steven-holls-portfolio-of-chinese-projects-examined

At the same time that a retrospective of Steven Holl Architects' work is on view in a 16th century castle in Lecce, Italy, another exhibition featuring seven of the firms projects in Chinese cities is opening on Friday, July 30, in the historic Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Titled "Urbanism: Steven Holl + Li Hu," the exhibition features models, drawings, and 3D animations of recent projects, like the Nanjing Museum of Art and Architecture, Beijing Linked Hybrid, Shenzhen Horizontal Skyscraper, and Chengdu Sliced Porosity Block, and aims to present and celebrate the collaborative efforts of Steven Holl’s New York office and its Beijing branch, launched in 2006. Despite the 12-hour time difference between the two cities, the architects have been productive. They are adding three new major projects in Hangzhou — the Shan-Shui Oxygen and Boiler master plan, the Triaxial Field Pavilion, and a campus for the Music Museum. Designs for all three will all be on view in the exhibition.

The Shan-Shui Oxygen commission was won in a heated design competition that pitted Steven Holl Architects against rivals Herzog & de Meuron and David Chipperfield. The firm has designed an oxygen and boiler plant on the city’s outskirt while maintaining a harmonious relationship with the natural scenery of the renowned West Lake. To transform the old site, the architects are incorporating green technologies throughout the complex. Within the rebuilt shells of the oxygen and boiler plants, new experimental architectural spaces may be utilized as cafes, bars, and exhibition or performance spaces.

Presenting a close look at some of the most radical additions to the skylines of China's cities in recent years, the exhibition also offers a close view at the negotiation that continues to occur between modernity and tradition, development and sustainability throughout the country.

Ferragamo Bares Claws in a Collaboration with Artist Xue Song

By Louise Chen

Originally published on artinfo.com, June 10, 2010

http://in.blouinartinfo.com/contemporary-arts/article/34879-ferragamo-bares-claws-in-a-collaboration-with-artist-xue-song

Combining Italian luxury with a Chinese touch,Ferragamo is launching a line of limited-edition bags and wallets emblazoned with two tigers by Chinese artist Xue Song, a collaboration available exclusively in the fashion house's Hong Kong stores.

Xue created the original painting of the two fierce cats against a red jungle background after a visit to the Ferragamo Museum Archive in 2009. A cherished animal in Chinese culture, the tiger embodies power, ferocity, beauty, and vivacity — symbolizing the Chinese aspiration for progress. The two tigers are rendered by silkscreen on the front of each leather tote.

The new line is bound to catch the eye of local fashionistas with an interest in Western style and an appreciation for Chinese traditions. But they won't have an easy time getting their hands on it — Ferragamo's first line launched specifically for the Chinese market is only being shown at Salvatore Ferragamo boutiques at Canton Road, Tsimshatsui, and in the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong.

The 80-year-old fashion house has been known for tapping into the energy of the art avant-garde throughout their history of creative image-building. Many renowned artists have been invited to collaborate with the Florentine brand, including Futurist painter Lucio Venna — for a 1930s advertising campaign — and Pietro Annigoni, who painted Ferragamo’s portrait as well as the house's Florence headquarters. (The latter was incorporated into the company’s letterhead in the 1950s-1980s.) For this latest project, the fashion company was drawn to Xue’s art by the way he infuses traditional Chinese forms with contemporary elements and techniques, reinterpreting a collective cultural memory.

Ferragamo has recently opened stores in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou, and is planning to launch 10 more stores in mainland China. According to company CEO Michele Norsa, greater China — including the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan — may overtake Japan as the company's largest market after the U.S. by the end of 2010.

A Survey of Steven Holl's Architecture Comes to an Italian Castle

By Louise Chen

Originally published on artinfo.com, August 05, 2010

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/architecture-design/article/35149-a-survey-of-steven-holls-architecture-comes-to-an-italian-castle

Steven Holl, the award-winning architect behind such acclaimed buildings as the 2007 "lens" expansion to Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, is having a welcome turn in the spotlight thanks to a survey of his recent European and Chinese projects at the 16th-century castle of Acaya in Lecce, Italy. Titled “Su Pietra,” the exhibition — running from July 10 through January 15 — is an ambitious detailing of Holl's design process, with displays ranging from drawings and building models to 3-D animations, with images of his postmodern structures cast onto the castle's ancient stone walls via high-definition projections.

An architect whose sensitive designs often play with feints of lighting and minimalist touches to all but disappear into their surroundings, Holl is something of a futurist naturalist — an approach that can be clearly seen in his European projects. In Hamarøy, Norway, for instance, the architect's 2009 Knut Hamsun Center — a monument to the country's controversial Nobel Prize-winning author and Nazi sympathizer — is a block of black wood topped by reedy plant life, resembling an angular chunk of obsidian growing out of the landscape. The Herning Museum of

Contemporary Art in Denmark, on the other hand, is an ethereal complex of broad white surfaces that sits, almost hovering like a low cloud, in the midst of a field. 

The Chinese part of the exhibition, meanwhile, revolves around the themes of urbanization, multi-functionality, and sustainability. After launching his Beijing office in 2006, the architect and his partners Li Hu and Chris McVoy have built up one of the most sought-after international firms for new landmark projects in a major Chinese city, creating structures known for their shifting views, malleable spatial arrangements, and dynamic use of water and air to create micro-climate outdoor public areas.

The best-known of these was Holl's first project in China's capital city, the 722,000-square-feet Linked Hybrid complex, which consists of eight towers linked by a ring of sky bridges. It was chosen as the “Best Tall Building” of 2009 by the Chinese Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats. Then, in Shenzhen, the Vanke Center — dubbed “the horizontal skyscraper” — stretches for 200,000-square-feet, a span as long as the height of the Empire State Building, offering a 360-degree view of the surrounding tropical landscape.