steven holl: 'su pietra' on display in lecce, italy

steven holl architects – su pietra exhibition the castle of acaya, lecce, italy on now until january 15, 2011

stone sculpture of steven holl’s tourism complex in hangzhou, china all images courtesy steven holl

steven holl architects‘ ‘su pietra’ exhibition opened earlier this month at the castle of acaya in lecce, italy. the show illustrates the design process of steven holl architects, from conception to its current form, documenting the collaborative process of model making, drawing, and animation. in the exhibition, steven holl architects’ recent projects merge with the early 16th century castle of acaya, with high definition projections being cast onto the stone walls.

stone sculptures created for ‘su pietra’

two pairs of stone sculptures have been created by steven holl specifically for su pietra. complementing the exhibit’s projections ‘on stone’. the sculptures have been manufactured in lecce and rendered from digital files. one pair reflects the shape of an architecture project in hangzhou by steven holl and the other pair reflects a landscape in iceland after the recent volcanic eruption. each pair consists of positive and negative spaces of the above mentioned shapes.

construction process

construction process

construction process

‘su pietra’ focuses on steven holl architects’ recent projects in europe and china. while the chinese projects – the horizontal skyscraper in shenzhen, linked hybrid in beijing, and the nanjing museum of art and architecture – explore the macro scale of cities through the lens of architecture, the european projects show a vision of the preservation of natural landscape, as with the herning museum of contemporary art, knut hamsun center, loisium alsace, and the cité de l’ocean et du surf in biarritz. rather than monofunctional buildings, these new hybrid buildings incorporate rich programmatic juxtapositions. at the micro scale, the european projects aim at shaping space, and investigating the phenomena of light and tactility through material development and experimentation.