Images, courtesy of Steven Holl Architects
THE ART THAT LIES BENEATH
Time, Richard Lacayo, 19 March 2007
'Now that architecture is practically as glamorously daredevil as bullfighting, every year has its Most Anticipated Building. (...) This year there's just one: the Bloch Building, Steven Holl's addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., which opens in June. It's going to be the year's most visible building on the strength of being the building that's not there. Holl gave the Nelson-Atkins 165,000 sq. ft. of new space by burying the space underground. (...) What appears above ground are five irregular glass pavilions, transparent in some parts and translucent in others, which serve as vaulted glass ceilings for the galleries below while carrying out a kind of photon hydraulics. During the day they'll pour (diffused) light into the galleries. After dark, lit from within, they'll pump it back against the night sky. Call them lenses - Holl's term - or lanterns. They're illuminating.'
Steven Holl Architects
The Bloch Building has been shortlisted for an award in the Museum Category at the upcoming World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, 22-24 October 2008.