Parallax

What makes Steven Holl one of the most celebrated architects working today? As we learn in Parallax, his success comes from his sculptural form making, his interest in the poetics of space, color, and materiality, and his fascination with scientific phenomena. Holl reveals his working methods in this, his biggest and most ambitious book yet on his work-part treatise, part manifesto, and part, as Holl writes, “liner notes” to fifteen recent projects, some never before published.

Parallax traces Holl’s ideas on topics as diverse as the “chemistry of matter” and the “pressure of light,” and shows how they emerge in his architectural work: “strange attractors” at Cranbrook, “porosity” in his new dormitory at MIT, “tripleness” in the new Bellevue Art Museum in Washington. The result is a book that provides a personal tour of the work of one of the world’s most esteemed architects.

Parallax is designed by Michael Rock of the award-winning design firm 2×4. It is our fourth book on Holl’s work, following Anchoring, Intertwining, and The Chapel of St. Ignatius.