The Transition: Typology, Topology and Phenomenology

By the mid-eighties, Steven Holl had become bolder, surer of his own philosophy and architecture. As a result, during the second half of the eighties he undergoes a shift from “typology”, the study and documentation of a set of buildings which have similarities in their type of function or form, to “topology”, the mutation of form, structure, context and programme into interwoven patterns and complex dynamics. 6 Nonetheless, something of his old "typology” would linger on in the Stretto House, which may be seen as transitional work, since it is one of his only buildings that demonstrates this underlying tension between the typological and the organic. 7

The typological appears in the orthogonal “servant” elements, the spaces that serve the utilised, containing the vertical circulation plus kitchens and bathrooms, while the organic appears in the “served” elements, the spaces that are actively used, containing the living spaces with vaulted roofs leaping over them. 8 The “servant and served spaces” is a concept first articulated by Louis Kahn in his design for the Trenton Jewish Community Centre of 1957 (derived in large part from the similar tartan grids found in Wright's early Prairie Period

Figure 4: Servant spaces identification on existing plan

Figure 5: Plan of the Trenton Jewish Community Centre by Louis Kahn

6 Kenneth Frampton, Steven Holl, 1st ed. (Phaidon Press), 11-12; Architecture, All About. “TOPOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE.” Medium, Medium, 1 Nov. 2018, medium.com/@AAA_Publication/topological-architecture3e7e4288dc27 ; “Building Typology.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_typology. 7 Kenneth Frampton, Steven Holl, 1st ed. (Phaidon Press), 15. 8 Ibid.

works).9 Therefore, against his own teachings in the 1980’s, Steven Holl,can be seen here as using a typological precedent for his design, in contrast to his belief at the time “that to be able to create something new from scratch, you only needed imagination.”10

In the book Steven Holl, the author argues about the Stretto House that while “there can be no doubt as to evocative energy of this volumetric sequence, …, all of this graceful rhythm is somehow lost on the exterior largely because the concrete block prisms deny in some absolute sense the athletic origin and spring of the roof origins.”11 This contrast is where that tension lies, something Holl would stray away from the following years. He states in his book Parallax that “the problem with a theory of architecture that begins in type is the impossible gap between analysis and synthesis”.12 Consequently, new topological openness became his theoretical frame.13

Around this time, Steven Holl also introduced his new interest, phenomenology, particularly philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. Phenomenology is the interpretive study of human experience and, as described by Holl, a discipline that puts essences into experience.14 Norburg-Shulz had described how natural and constructed environments, together as a set of complex and "concrete phenomena", affect human experiences, perceptions and emotions, while Holl mentions that sensory, perceptual, conceptual and emotional experiences illuminate phenomenal architecture. 15 Essentially, architecture affects the human experience while the consideration of human experience in design affects the resulting architecture. This realisation led him to reject the disengagement of design methods from the tactile, auditory, and haptic experiences, which had resulted in the privileging of a retinal architecture.16

Considering the visual appearance of a design has been thought to be devoid of intellectual content, a subjective task that does not bear close examination. If one is misled by the physicality of what is visible, there is a chance of being side-tracked into missing the real “picture”, which is embodied meaning that is there to be sensed, not seen, its invisible essence more valuable than its visible presence.17 Juhani Pallasmaa mentions that this new awareness is projected by architects who are attempting to re-sensualise architecture and transcend the relative immateriality and weightlessness of recent technological construction into a positive experience of space, place and meaning.18

Arguing for an experiential, hence fragmentary, approach, what Steven Holl needed to organize all the parts in his projects was some thread of thought, which was fluid enough but only allowed to unfold according to its own internal rules. 19 This was the “limited concept”, a defence mechanism the

Figure 6: The concrete orthogonal blocks and the curved metal roofs of the Stretto House

9 Robert McCarter, Steven Holl, 1st ed. (Phaidon Press), 92. 10 El Croquis SL, El Croquis 172, 1st ed. (El Croquis), 19. 11 Robert McCarter, Steven Holl (Ellipsis London Pr Ltd), 9. 12 Steven Holl, Parallax (Birkhäuser – Publishers for Architecture), 302. 13 Ibid. 14 Steven Holl, Parallax (Birkhäuser – Publishers for Architecture), 68. 15 Korydon Smith, Introducing Architectural Theory (Routledge), 362; Steven Holl, Intertwining (Princeton Architectural Press), 7. 16 Robert McCarter, Steven Holl, 1st ed. (Phaidon Press), 6. 17 Korydon Smith, Introducing Architectural Theory (Routledge), 393. 18 Juhani Pallasma, Eyes of the Skin (Wiley Academy), 37; Juhani Pallasma, Eyes of the Skin (Wiley Academy), 32. 19 Steven Holl, Architecture Spoken; Steven Holl, Anchoring, 3rd ed. (Princeton Architectural Press), 8.