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School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa

Iowa City
Steven Holl Architects

Steven Holl nicely balances expressionism and functionalism in the University of Iowa’s school of art and art history  

 


Photo © Andy Ryan
   

By Blair Kamin

When star architects design campus art buildings, it arouses many of the underlying tensions associated with the execution of art museums. Which matters more: the building or the art, the container or the contained, the architect’s desire to create brilliant cultural commentaries or the quotidian needs of faculty and students?

Talk to normally placid art school administrators about such iconic structures (of which the classic example is Paul Rudolph’s 1963 Arts and Architecture Building at Yale University) and they practically fly into a rage about the functional shortcomings imposed upon them by arrogant form-makers. There is never enough wall space for displaying art or showing slides properly, for example.

New York architect Steven Holl’s $21.5 million, 70,000-square-foot art and art history building for the University of Iowa winningly navigates a third way between the extremes of over-the-top expressionism and prosaic functionalism. Holl hasn’t just made a knock-your-eyes-out building, a dynamic collage that wears a reddish-brown jacket of oxidizing steel and seems utterly at home soaring over an old quarry pond. He’s made a real place, one that painters carting around their canvases actually seem to like.

Holl pulls this off by exploiting the idea of “formless” geometries, which sounds oh-so-pretentious, given that there is no such thing as formless architecture. But the idea, which abandons rigid a priori shapes and lets the arrangement of spaces and circulation routes determine the design, has real merit and actually informs the “Starchitects Descend Upon Small Cities” debate. Because of its flexibility and Holl’s creativity, Iowa’s art building uplifts both its users and its site. Even though construction delays forced the building to open behind schedule, the road Holl traveled in Iowa turned out to be far less rocky than in Denver, where last fall he quit a justice center still in design, trading charges and countercharges with city officials over the extent of budget overruns.

Dedicated last September and designed with associate architects Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck of Des Moines, the steel-framed structure serves a progressive graduate and undergraduate program that has long sought to bring together the making and the analysis of art. It belongs to a too-loosely-knit group of arts buildings along the west side of the Iowa River, which bisects the hilly campus.

Want the full story? Read the entire article in our January 2007 issue.
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the People

Owner
University of Iowa

Architect's firm name
Steven Holl Architects
450 West 31st street, 11th floor
10001, New York, New York, USA
Phone 212 629 7262
Fax 212 629 7312
www.stevenholl.com

Personnel in architect's firm who should receive special credit
Design Architects:
Steven Holl, Chris McVoy, Martin Cox

Associate in Charge:
Martin Cox

Project Architects:
Li Hu, Gabriela Barman-Kramer

Project Team:
Arnault Biou, Regina Chow, Elsa Chryssochoides, Hideki Hirahara, Brian Melcher, Chris Otterbine, Susi Sanchez, Irene Vogt, Urs Vogt

Architect of record:
Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture
www.hlkb.com

Rod Kruse, Principal in Charge
Matt Niebuhr, Project Architect
Jaimi Fisher, Jim Hoff, Jon Sloan, Mark Schmidt, Project Team

Interior designer:
Steven Holl Architects

Engineer(s):

Structural Engineer 
Guy Nordenson and Associates (Guy Nordenson, Brett Schneider, Christopher Diamond ) with Structural Engineering Associates (Kelley Gipple, Cara Hoadley)
www.nordenson.com/

Mechanical Engineer
Alvine and Associates (Gary  Cooper, Frank Scalise, John Larson, Wayne Moore)
www.alvine.com/

Civil engineer
Shive-Hattery
www.shive-hattery.com/

Consultant(s)

Landscape:
Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture
www.hlkb.com

Lighting:
Steven Holl Architects
www.stevenholl.com

Other:
 Curtain Wall Consultant                       Higgins & Co.
www.wjhiggins.com

General contractor:
Larson Construction, Independence, IA
www.larsonconstruction.com/

Photographer(s):
Andy Ryan

Renderer(s)
Steven Holl Architects

the Products

Structural system:
Steel frame with precast concrete planks by Iowa Precast Concrete

Exterior cladding

Metal/glass curtainwall:
Custom manufactured by Architectural Wall Systems, Des Moines,IA and Pohl USA.
www.archwall.com

Roofing

Other:
Sarnafil membrane
www.sarnafilus.com/

Interior finishes

Cabinetwork and custom woodwork:
 Architectural Arts, Des Moines, IA
www.architecturalarts.com

Furnishings

Office furniture:
Allsteel
www.allsteel.com

Reception furniture:
Fixed seating: Irwin Seating
www.irwinseating.com/

Lighting

Interior ambient lighting:
Custom manufactured by Bartco Lighting, Huntington Beach, CA 92649
www.bartcolighting.com/

 

 
 
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