ABSTRACT
While artists work from the real to the abstract, architects must work from the abstract to the real. While art may legitimize itself as an object or an event, architecture dissolves into a blur of buildings. Architecture, under all of its constraints of engineering safety, function, climate responsibility and economy, sometimes transcends to inspire us with ideas in space and light—qualities achieved in the abstract.

USE
Some artists qualify the difference between architecture and art as “use” versus “lack of use.” This characterization truncates “use.” What is the “use” of music if not to stir the spirit? Equally a “function” of architecture is to inspire with a construction of luminous spatial energy. Its highest “use” is to deeply move us.

SPACE
Encountered by the body moving through space; architecture’s volumes, connected in a path of overlapping perspectives, surround us likemusic. Space is “listened to” with a step forward, a twist of the body, a tilt of the head. A wash of light dissolving in perspective propels the body forward, fromforeground tomiddle ground and onward, as adistant view becomes the new foreground. Interior and exteriorconverge. Drawing us from one location to the next,architecture is the art of space.

IDEA
A work of architecture has an idea—an organic link between concept and form. Thisidea is a hidden thread connecting disparate parts with exact intention. Pieces cannot be subtracted or added without upsetting fundamental properties. The phenomena of space, light, material/detail—as understood by others—convey the art, whether or not the organizingidea is fully grasped.

by Steven Holl

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