Conflicting views on Holl Steps to better buildings


Conflicting views on Holl

Steps to better buildings

Reflections on Holl - and arq
It was good to receive the first copy
of arq (3/1) under its new publishers.
I was also delighted to find a
satisfactory increase in legibility
through a sharper type face and
daring use of blacker ink! As for
content, well, the mixture is before,
impenetrable in some places,
extremely interesting (especially on
U.S. practice in the context of Holl's
Museum of Contemporary Art in
Helsinki), lucid and enriching in the
book reviews, especially Maxwell on
'Rhetoric'.

Then good to see a building well
published with decent plans even if
my experience and perceptions of
the building did not embrace the
significance of its relationship to
the city and our culture. My diary
refers to it as'... not a bad thing but
a thin affair after Aalto - ramps and
architectural high jinks ...' Maybe
Holl got the 'generator' right given
the distinction drawn in the article
between 'modern' art and
'contemporary' art but, as at the
Tate of the West Gallery at St Ives,
there seems too much architecture
in relation to contents.

On the other hand, Ada Louise
Huxtable would persuade us that
these new 'Museums' at their best
are dedicated'... not only to
collecting and preserving but to the
search for meaning that has always
been among civilisation's highest
achievements. This has produced a
unique building type today, based
on an unprecedented kind of
collaboration between artists and
architects. At its most successful it
is a new art form..." (New York Review
of Books, 11 April 1999)

The distinction between
'modern' and 'contemporary'
seems a fine one in this instance.
Does 'contemporary' need

architecturally highly articulated
even dominating space? The recent
'Sensation' exhibition at the Royal
Academy showed that traditional
spaces suit well that sort of thing
while most Installation Art surely
needs to start from 'neutral' space
which, for example, I'm sure
Herzog and de Meuron's new Tate
Gallery at Millbank will provide.

Are these new museums, these
ecstatic works, cultural cruise
missiles which land in old cultures
that are perhaps deeper than we
know, and which offer instant
toursitic visual stimuli rather than
content? As Pound put it,'... the age
demanded an image of its
accelerated grimace...'

But arq sets one thinking about
these and other issues - and isn't
that what it's for? Congratulations
on getting it going again.

TREVOR DANNATT
London

Trevor Dannatt is Professor of
Architecture at the Royal Academy and
practices in London.

More on Holl
There are two issues which might
have been expanded on in Esa
Laaksonen's review (arq 3/1) of
Steven Holl's Museum of
Contemporary Art in Helsinki - the
echoes of Aalto's Terrace Square
proposal and the relation between
the building and the art for which
it provides a setting.

The chosen site was once a part of
an urban plan by Alvar Aalto to
create a new cultural centre in
Helsinki. He proposed a string of
buildings embracing T66I0 Bay's
western shoreline and culminating
with Terrace Square, a piazza in city

centre. The proposals were objected
to for many different reasons:
Terrace Square was considered
dreary and lacked the surrounding
density needed for an urban square
and nearby Mannerheimintie has
wide pavements and many cafes. The
area didn't need Aalto's vast piazza.
The public wanted the area around
T66I0 Bay to be preserved as a park.

In the end, the only part of
Aalto's grand scheme to be built
was Finlandia Hall, sitting without
its intended context on T66I0 Bay.
Aalto objected to the area being
preserved as an 'urban forest' and
the authorities have recently
returned to his ideas, holding
competitions for public buildings
to be built around the bay. The site
for the Museum for Contemporary
Art may have been on what was
originally Terrace Square in Aalto's
scheme but the intentions reflected
his idea of a line of cultural
buildings around the bay. Holl has
created enough of a public piazza
in front of his building to serve the
same purpose as Aalto's square. And
Holl's building conveys the feeling
that, had it not been sliced through
at its north end, it could have
extended, in Aalto's words, '...as far
as Lapland...'

The competition brief
emphasised that in no way should
the architecture take over from the
art itself. It stated that:

'Art should be given priority in the
design of the new museum. It should
be borne in mind that a good deal of
contemporary art is intended to be
shown in relatively unembellished
settings. The focus of the museum
should be the space in which the
spectator encounters the works of
art..:

Each of the 25 unique exhibition
spaces successfully remains silent

letters arq V0I3 • no2 • 1999 105



i o 6 arq • V0I3 • no 2 • 1999 letters

as the brief specified, eliminating
intermediate details and fittings
which might distract from the art:
they form a successful setting for a
wide range of exhibitions and
installations.

The most published image
though, the space with which most
people will associate the museum, is
the circulation hall which marks the
internal meeting of the building's
two elements. There is a constant
reference to this space as you move
through the building, it orientates
you by providing carefully studied
views but it is also introverted and
encourages the spectator to analyse
the space created, like a work of art,
an inverted sculpture. This space can
be examined from every angle and
height possible: it controls the
building.

Though the circulation hall was
intended to be mute by masking
the constructional details, it is
animated to the point of being
confusing. The angle of the view as
you enter the building is such that
the landing point at which the long
ramp meets the curving stairs is
concealed, suggesting infinite
growth. There is a very strong sense
of spatialityas the vanishing point
disappears between the black
concrete floor and the bright roof
light. The strong sense of ground
and sky allows the ramps to move
gracefully within the space,
cantilevered off the wall without
appearing to defy gravity. The ramp
which takes you from the ground
floor at the beginning of your
journey moves away from the earth
imperceptibly, its solid balustrade
appearing later. The walls on either
side are solid and unforgiving
except where punctuated by
openings to the spaces beyond.

The focus of the museum is thus
the circulation hall rather than the
space in which the spectator
encounters the works of art but
perhaps this is appropriate for a
contemporary art gallery whose
transient exhibitions need to be
situated in a more restful setting.
The brief stated that the interior
spaces should be 'spatially unobtrusive
and unarticulated' but at the same
time the architecture should 'reflect
the function and character of the
building.' Holl's building successfully
satisfies this requirement.

BETH KAY
Cambridge

Beth Kay is an architecture student and
has recently written a dissertation on
'Designing Museums in the Millennium:
the Intertwining of Art and Architecture'

Learning cycle problems
Donald Watson's paper on the link
between practice and research (arq
3/1) was very interesting, but
appeared directed toward the
'converted', rather than to the
generality of architects and their
clients. Perhaps that is indicated in
the use of the phrase 'the astute (my
italics) client'. Despite all the
advances in recent years in the
process of commissioning,
significant gaps remain, and the
clients who claim to be astute are
sometimes perilously close to
believing that they can obtain a fail-
safe building if they and their
advisers complete sufficient
paperwork.

The development of a learning
cycle would have to be funded,
perhaps by a version of the Dutch
system, in the form of a 'tax' on
building construction. However,
into that learning cycle, we need to
inject a clear analysis of the
problems that learning cycle is
intended to tackle.

Three examples:
First, clients - astute or not - have

to be made aware of the
consequences of their own
decisions. Building failure claims
reveal a substantial contributory
negligence aspect for the client -
where they have stopped and
changed programmes, cut budgets,
insisted on certain materials,
certain contractors and particular
procedures. Sharing of the results
in peer-reviewed publications may
be excellent for academic
progression but seems highly
unlikely to command a wide
professional or client market. Once
again, it is the provider's, rather
than the consumer's perspective. I
think it is only in Scotland that
there has been regular detailed
feedback on buildings claims
openly published - even in its fairly
rudimentary way.

Second, there is the question of
language. It is quite possible that
the most important person of the
future is a translator between
architect and client. In one project,
great offence was given when a user
desire was rejected by the architect
on the grounds that 'it would
interfere with the design' (his
words). An analysis of the project
has revealed that the user desire
would have been impossible
because there was insufficient
space for it: a completely different
and understandable matter.

Finally, I wonder if the profession
has always been as sophisticated as
it could have been about

communicating what architecture
can achieve for the client. The user
should be able to take basic
competence and improving
knowledge for granted. So what are
the values the architect can bring to
the project with 2o/2ist century
materials and technology:
light.uninterrupted space, volume,
comfort, sustainability.materials
and surprise - for a start. Whether
in an office or a block of flats, is it
to be the same old plan with
consistent ceiling heights with
marginal pyrotechnics around the
entrance, circulation and
lavatories, fashionable cladding
and a wavy roof, or something
rather deeper ?

Donald Watson suggests that
dissemination of knowledge
through conferences and
publications. It would be a start, at
any rate, if every building in receipt
of government funds were required
to have produced, upon
completion, a simple A4 document
giving the basic information on the
bulding, design and construction,
including a statement of client
intention and architect response,
and a brief summary of how the
design developed during the
project, if it did. Ideally, all UK
Lottery funded projects should
expand that with the addition of a
post-completion analysis and
evaluation.

The existence of such
information in a consistent way
could be the first step in preparing
a suitable practice/academic
research culture: for at the
moment, we have no coherent and
systematic body of knowledge in
which such a proposed culture
could take root.

CHARLES MCKEAN
Dundee.

Charles McKean is Professor of
Architectural History at the University of
Dundee and former Secretary of the
Royal Incorporation of Architects in
Scotland

Letters should be sent to Peter Carolin,
arq, c/o University of Cambridge
Department of Architecture, iScroope
Terrace, Cambridge CB21PX, UK
F +44(0)1223332960 or Emailedto
pc207@hermes.cam.ac.uk
The Editors reserve the rig ht to
shorten letters.



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