Steven Holl has recently inaugurated his housing project, Meander, in Helsinki, Finland; a quick view of the elongated serpentine-like shape explains the name very well. Indeed, given the rectangular limits of the site, which are surrounded by rectangular blocks, with a view of the sea at the south side, there was hardly any alternative but to create an undulating shape with a facade that could accommodate maximum exposure and capture the light and views as much as possible.

All of this was accomplished with great elegance and economy. Of the 117 apartments, 100 were already sold by the time of the inauguration. The tempered glass in the façade allows maximum heat in the winter and minimum heat during the short summer season. Steven Holl imagined it as a “ship in a glass bottle”.

What meets the eye so effortlessly and elegantly is in fact the result of more than thirty years practice and reflection. Because the architect already set out on his design strategy – his design adventure – in the early nineties published with the title: "Anchoring", one of the elements he always paid close attention is the site, and the way the building relates to it. 

As he has done so superbly down the road in Helsinki, not far from Saarinen’s Railway Station, in the Kiasma project so many years earlier (1998). There, the grid of the city and the geometry of the Museum of Contemporary Art are in a dialogue, in a way that recalls the discourse of the Smithsons on that subject. Holl’s characterization of his modus operandi is always a follow up on his past design, and an anticipation of future projects. In some cases, they happen to be close to each other also geographically.

Holl incessantly reformulates his credo, in which he states his essential belief in the nature of the architecture project, rooted in a dialectic of certitude and doubt which later on would become the assertion of his belief in “doubt” as an operative principle.

He announced it in his 2009 book Urbanism. Indeed, in the first chapter, “Working with Doubt”, beginning with a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein (1950): “In every serious philosophical question, uncertainty extends to the very roots of the problem. We must always be prepared to learn something totally new”.

Of course, this suggests that Steven Holl believed at the time, and perhaps still believes, that the architect’s project is comparable to a philosophical problem. An assumption which has been often challenged. 

In that publication, he described a residential project located in Helsinki’s cultural and historical district Taka-Töölö along the Taivallahti Bay. “Out of the bounded inner block the 8,886b square-meter Meander rises in section toward the sea horizon, providing breathing space to the historic barracks, and maximizing views and sunlight to the 117 apartments in the new building”.

Then Holl went on to describe his housing project: “The 180-meter-long concrete, wood, and glass building with height varying from two to seven floors, meanders takes its place across the rectangular courtyard like a musical score shaping garden void spaces within the block. Meander is carried by concrete walls, and glazed with horizontally hinged panels of intelligent glass to maximize control of light and solar gain”. As you would expect in Helsinki, a rooftop sauna with sea views is set among the spaces for residents. Indeed, the day I visited the Meander, workers had hardly done anything yet with the trees and plants in the ground during the last week before inauguration.

Above all, we can only offer praise for Meander, some twenty minutes’ drive from the center of Helsinki.  Indeed, several parallels suggest themselves, such as Kiasma, the City Museum at Houston and the school of art, inaugurated right before Iowa College of Art.

It is difficult to draw any conclusion from such a comparison, and yet one is bound to consider the parallels, as two different projects in the same city provide without a doubt a good reason to raise the question in the first place.  It seems to me that a radically different program is a stronger element in the combination that gives the ultimate shape to a project. Yet in Helsinki the very fact that we are dealing with a city built on an archipelago is perhaps the greatest common denominator of what could or could not be done there. Indeed, Kiasma and the housing project Meander are facing the same water of Taivallahti Bay. 

Holl was extremely fortunate in winning competitions for extremely prestigious architectural environments in Helsinki, and so it was in Houston. With Mies to begin with and Moneo as a follow up. 

The Meander project also brings to mind Oscar Niemeyer’s Edificio Copan, a 38-storey residential building with a curved, concrete facade in Sao Paulo, relatively close to the center. Both buildings offer housing, in Sao Paulo on a very large scale, in Helsinki on a more modest scale. What they have in common is the curved facade, moderate in Sao Paulo,  while smaller but much more significant in Helsinki: the entire shape of the project is determined by this curve. More than our own curved spine, it undulates twice within the modest length of a 180-meter-long building. This is more than enough to offer each unit its own unique disposition, not only in relation to the immediate environment but to the world at large, the sun, the stars and the sea.

Of course, the idea of the meander brings to mind the entire gamut of the ancient Greek system of ornament deriving its name from a river now in Turkish territory: Meander. It is a rare moment, when the ancient pattern acquires a new setting to such great effect, as it is here in Helsinki.

Opening image: Steven Holl Architects, Meander, Helsinki, Finland, 2024. Photo Jenny Kallio. Courtesy Steven Holl Architects