BEHIND THE SCENES

Steven Holl Explains the Virtues of His Newest Paint Set

From his office in his New York studio, the architect gives us a glimpse at his creative process by way of watercolor.

Holl shows off the rich-hued watercolors in his newest paint set, which he discovered at a shop on 29th Street. A gray painting for his Hunters Point Community Library in Queens, which will be completed in spring 2018, sits nearby.

Steven Holl, Architect
At the Steven Holl Architects studio in New York

“For a creative person, you need to feel inspired. And you don’t feel inspired every day. Maybe you have a hangover, or somebody tried to cheat you out of money, so you come in, and you’re grumpy. I can pull down a box of my old paintings and find a new idea. That’s another reason I keep them: because some ideas are dead ends in the project they’re in, but they’re not dead ends in others. They can be rekindled in a different way.”

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