The Chiasm and the Experience of Space

Stephen Holl's winning entry for the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art competition, begun in 1992, was titled “chiasma,” a Greek term for “intertwining” borrowed from the writings of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The Museum is made up of two primary volumes: A rectilinear form aligned with the main city grid, enveloped by a larger, curvilinear form to the north and east. The two forms allow Holl to explore the theme of intertwining on various levels: between nature and culture, object and space, movement and stasis, and light and material. This paper explores these various relationships and the way in which they reflect the connection between body and space that is fundamental to Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology.