"When I say drawing as thought, I don’t mean it’s always a priori. Sometimes […] I'll have the thought after I see the drawing." — Steven Holl, in conversation with STIR

Drawing is often regarded as an epistemological tool, a way of representing what we already know about architecture. However, one might theorise that it is not always merely a means of expressing pre-formed ideas; sometimes, it challenges not only how we understand architecture but also what architecture itself might be. If drawing is more than a record—if it actively shapes the very thing it seeks to describe—can it be considered architecture in its own right? American architect Steven Holl, whose expansive repertoire of two-dimensional work is the subject of a major exhibition—Steven Holl – Drawing as Thought—at the Tchoban Foundation’s Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin, would certainly discern as such.

Extending that thread of thought, another American architect and a luminary of our times, Louis Kahn suggested that architecture is more than its built manifestations. "There is no such thing as architecture; what does exist is the spirit of architecture. But it has no presence. What does have presence is a work of architecture, and at best, it must be considered as an offering of architecture itself merely because of the wonder of its beginning," as he famously stated on the idea of an ephemeral architecture. A building, no matter how complete, is only an offering toward a deeper architectural idea. And if architecture exists beyond its material form, where is it most fully realised?

Italian architect Giuliano Fiorenzoli, in Architecture and the Body (1988), similarly challenges the notion of architecture as a purely built discipline, stating, "Architecture should be defined as an activity of the mind free from pragmatic restrictions in search mainly for those unfolding imageries that investigate the origin of the idea of space itself and not the building to be later built." Like Kahn, Fiorenzoli too seems to suggest that architecture is foremost a conceptual pursuit, untethered from the necessity of its manifestation.

If architecture begins in thought, unrestricted by material limitations, then perhaps it finds its most immediate expression in drawing. In conversation with STIR, Holl elaborates on this very idea, describing drawing as a generative act—one that may precede or even give rise to architectural thought itself. The exhibition, Steven Holl – Drawing as Thought, currently on view until May 4, 2025, embodies precisely this idea. Through large-format black-and-white architectural drawings and watercolours, it presents drawing not merely as a way to visualise architecture but also as the space where architecture itself comes into being.

Curated by Kristin Feireiss, the exhibition’s two-level structure reinforces this notion. The ground floor presents larger black-and-white drawings of four seminal projects that launched Holl’s practice, while the top floor showcases watercolours of ongoing projects and works that were completed later, or "the thinking drawings that launch the projects", as Holl mentions in his pensive conversation with STIR. The exhibition frames the origins of Holl’s practice, showing how international projects and polemical ideas shaped his work, establishing him as a global architect.

I always believe that there is an idea that drives the design, and if it's clear, you can put it on a 5x7 pad very simply. – Steven Holl

For Holl, architecture begins on his 5x7-inch pad—a small surface that distils abstract architectural concepts with an essence of their own. In fact, many of his projects find a comfortable existence in this in-between state; fully conceived as architecture, yet not realised as built works. The Palazzo del Cinema in Venice (1990) and the Porta Vittoria in Milan (1986) remain bona fide architecture, though they have never become 'works of architecture'. Although articulated through drawings and models, they have no physical presence beyond these mediums, and Holl seems content in that very notion, reminiscing how they still helped him find his grounding as a "global citizen" architect.

In this context, Drawing as Thought asks us to reconsider the role of drawing in architecture, not as a step toward building but as a form of architecture in its own right. If ontology defines what architecture is, and epistemology determines how we come to know it, then drawing exists at the intersection of both—it is to be seen as both architecture itself and the means by which architecture is understood.

Click on the cover video to watch the full conversation with Steven Holl on the exhibition, on drawing as a process and much more.

‘Steven Holl – Drawing as Thought’ runs from February 7 –  May 4, 2025, at the Tchoban Foundation, Museum for Architectural Drawing, Berlin.