Basic HTML Version
14
F.
THE LANDSCAPE OF DISEQUILIBRIUM
Horizontal Skyscraper - Vanke Center,
Shenzhen, 2006-09
The Vanke Center is a mixed-use building including hotel, offices, serviced
apartments, and a public park. Baptized as the ‘horizontal skyscraper’ -as
long as the Empire State Building is tall-, Steven Holl applies again in his
project, the idea of hybridization, using the building as an instrument capa-
ble of articulating the overall economic process -so determinant in Shenz-
hen growing- with local fixations on specific topographies.
4
The diagrammatic cluster is the main strategy. The structure is raised 35
meters high, only supported by eight legs. Holl replaces here the Le Cor-
busier’s pilotis used in the Expansion of the American Memorial Library by
prismatic blocks that accommodate the access to the building.
The proposal was conceived as a gigantic artistic artefact, probably in-
spired by Joel Shapiro’s sculptures, composed of simple rectangular
shapes in apparent disequilibrium. Here, Holl reaffirms his intention of
connecting architecture with the rest of the world of plastic arts. The fa-
cades combine local materials with high-tech resolutions, creating a clear
distinction between those that need solar protection and those that do
not.
The operation of making the structure as ‘floating’ was motivated by a dou-
ble intention behind: firstly to generate the largest possible green space
on the existing landscape and secondly to offer 360-degree views over the
lush tropical landscape below. The orientation of the different branches
that compose the building are driven by the panoramas of the surround-
ings, choosing between mountain, lake or ocean views.
The interiors of the building were treated with a scenographic and ex-
pressionist approach, playing with light entrance, creating interesting con-
trasts of light and shadow. In this project Steven Holl shows his aim of
extrapolating the artistic approach that he develops in houses in large
scale buildings.
4 Alejandro Zaera Polo in “Steven Holl: Towards an Aesthetic of Reappearance”, Quaderns 197, 1992.