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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