Architect Steven Holl‘ doesn't collect art, he trade's art

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Show Us Your Walls
By Tim McKeough

The architect Steven Holl in his Manhattan apartment with a charcoal drawing by Richard Artschwager. It is one of the several pieces Mr. Holl has acquired from prominent artists by swapping his own work for something of theirs. Credit 2017 Richard Artschwager/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times

NEW YORK---Almost every morning, the architect Steven Holl wakes in his loftlike West Village apartment just before sunrise, climbs to an elevated platform by windows that offer a panoramic view of Manhattan, and paints. “Sometimes it’s a building I’m working on — they’re the concept drawings,” said Mr. Holl, 70. “Other times, it has nothing to do with any building. I just do what I feel.” He has followed a similar ritual since 1979, when he decided to limit his creations to 5-by-7-inch watercolors, which are small enough to paint on airplane tray tables when he travels. Today, he has an archive of more than 30,000 such works, organized chronologically. The apartment he shares with his wife, Dimitra Tsachrelia, 34, and their 1-year-old daughter, Io, is filled with works by artists and architects he has collaborated with or admired, including Louis Kahn, Zaha Hadid, Anish Kapoor, Richard Tuttle and Richard Artschwager. [More]