Inside Steven Holl's Archive
Architect Steven Holl takes viewers on a tour of the Architectural Archive and Research Building in Rhinebeck, New York. The “brachiating” building, home to the Steven Myron Holl Foundation, contains five decades worth of physical models, drawings, and daily watercolors from Holl's practice, alongside a large library of architecture books.
World-Architects visited the Architectural Archive and Research Building in summer 2019, when the structure nearing completion was known as the ArtArc and hosted the exhibition Rome and the Teacher, Astra Zarina. The building, an extension of a house from the 1940s, branched out once again in 2023, as described by Holl's hand in the screenshot above, and could potentially thread its way through the trees some more, following the brachiating concept that Holl articulates early in the video. At more than twenty minutes long, and featuring the commentary of Holl and others from his eponymous firm and foundation, the video by Spirit of Space delves deep into the design of the building but also the archive it preserves and presents to the public.