One is on the 32nd floor of an enigmatically forwardprojecting
Manhattan skyscraper, in the hyperspace of a scientific research company. The other is securely anchored to
the ground, so rooted in the deep traits of Central European
culture that it lies sunken in a courtyard of ancient Prague.
Can an interior translate at least a hint of science when the
request is to communicate the power of a supercomputer
that produces simulations of biological macromolecules in
a lobby space that is only 2.4 metres high?
Can an interior evoke at least one moment of literature
if the request is for a homage to Franz Kafka, where
his archives are kept on the ground- and basement floors
of a 19th-century building? And can this be accomplished
without being slavishly metaphorical or theatrically falling
into the trap of literal reconstruction?
Steven Holl’s two projects entrust the metonymic process
to a few pieces of fixed furniture elements, thanks to
which a single part can spatially recreate an entirety, pars
pro toto. In both, the focus is on constructing the space
around one fundamental or primary object: books in Prague
and a supercomputer in New York.
Somewhere on his sketches, Holl wrote: “Franz Kafka:
ambiguity in black and white.” He transfers this sovereign feeling
of ambiguity to partitions – where we hear sounds through a
piece of furniture without seeing their source, where we catch a
glimpse of a space now, but cannot recognise it a few minutes
later, where we can see through some parts, but not all. The
rectangular room is cadenced by bookcases/partitions that
are given the role of tricky transformation. A stage device, a
simple sliding and rotational movement around a pin, is all it
takes. By this mechanism, the books forcefully enter the space
and design it transversally every time a two-sided bookcase
(closed or opened; white or black) pivots around its hinge, in an
orthogonal position relative to the frame of the vaults.
Something Jewish fi lters through
in the tones of grey, black and white, just
like the disappearing bookcase (typical
of a secret room in a castle) indirectly
refers to Kafka. But a more decisive
move was needed to brand the project
and exorcise the sense of “night” that
shrouded the pre-existing surroundings:
Holl opened a skylight by cutting
through the vaulted ceiling in a desecrating (or simply modern)
way, linking the chthonic world of papers with a patch of sky.
In New York, Holl borrowed the chains of proteins and
other biological macromolecules studied by D. E. Shaw
Research to explore a different kind of geometry and its
related intriguing secrets. Two types of spatial “intrusion”
occupy the 32nd-floor lobby, adjacent to the elevator: a glass
“bubble” built around the supercomputer, conferring sacredness,
and a not entirely monumental staircase in the middle
of the space, suggesting the presence of a second level. Both
elements are sufficiently mysterious to allow only a partial,
intuitive perception of their identities.
The staircase is visible, but not overly so (like when you
arrive at the entrance of the Maison de Verre and you can tell, in
a non-explicit way, through perforated steel screens, that the
stairway behind might lead to the house). The area is enclosed
by 24 glass panels whose jutting slant commands respect for
whatever is probably contained there. Then we have the stairwell,
whose ceiling opening does not at all correspond with the
shape of its stairs, creating a dynamic effect in an otherwise
quite stagnant area. Nor does the line of the faceted glass
on the floor coincide with its line on the ceiling, injecting a
shifting parallax into this technological urn that stands inside
an otherwise quite standard lobby. The geometric procedure
of discrepancy between plans (stairwell versus staircase; the
meeting point between glass and fl oor versus the same glass
meeting the ceiling) generates a kind of expansion tank. The
result is movement, transformation. Screens and panels add
to the transfiguration of the space. A lace texture à la Shirin
Neshat was laser-cut into the stairs’ sheet-steel steps and
parapet. Smooth panelling encloses the space, incorporating
a plinth of LEDs that refl ect in the dark, glossy floor, giving an
atmospheric sensation of “being elsewhere”.
Ceiling height in a New York skyscraper is what it is, but
here, we are somewhere else.
The supercomputer and the books
One evokes the past and the other imagines the future. Steven Holl constructs the two projects around a single element. Design Steven Holl with Marcela Steinbachová (Prague). Text Manolo De Giorgi. Photos Andy Ryan (New York), Andrea Lhotáková (Prague).
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- 14 May 2008
- New York