Steven Holl: Drawing as Thought - exhibition at Tchoban Foundation

From this February until early May, the Museum of Architectural Drawing in Berlin will host an exhibition of watercolors by the American architect Steven Holl, who has had a close connection to the German metropolis since 1988, when he won a competition for the expansion of the America Memorial Library (F.Bornemann, G.Jobst, W.Kreuer, H.Wille, 1952-57) in West Berlin alongside Peter Lynch. Although the project was postponed indefinitely after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Holl's international career gained significant momentum.
The curator of the exhibition, Kristin Feireiss, who is also a co-founder of the Aedes gallery, decided to revisit this Berlin project at the Tchoban Foundation and selected two additional unrealized projects from Holl's extensive archive of 50,000 sketches and drawings: the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice (1990) and Porta Vittoria in Milan (1986). In addition to the projects, the exhibition will also feature drawings of completed works such as the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki (1998), St. Ignatius Chapel in Seattle (1997), Maggie's Centre in London (2017), Kennedy Center in Washington (2019), or the new Concert Hall in Ostrava, where Holl's studio won a competition six years ago and is gradually being realized starting from 2023.
The opening on Thursday, February 6, 2025, will feature a discussion at 5:00 PM in the adjacent Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, where Steven Holl will be joined by the founder of the Tchoban Foundation, Sergej Čoban, and Italian architect Diana Carta.
A comprehensive catalog is also being prepared for the exhibition.

“The work of internationally recognized American architect Steven Holl is characterized not only by his exceptional buildings focused on cultural and public structures, such as museums, art centers, concert halls, libraries, and universities around the world, but also by his artistic creations, which today number more than 50,000 sketches, black-and-white drawings, and watercolors. [...] Although visitors to the exhibition will encounter only a small part of his extensive work, each drawing should be examined and studied individually in accordance with Holl's intent.”