Steven Holl, the American architect best known for his 2007 addition to the Kansas City Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, his Helsinki Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, and his recent design forays in China, has received the commission to build a new library at the Queens West Development at Hunters Point. This study facility — which will contain book stacks, a gallery, meeting spaces, and reading rooms — will look out over the East River, the United Nations building, and the long-delayed Louis I. Kahn Roosevelt Memorial, which is currently being built at the tip of Roosevelt Island.

Holl has been receiving much attention of late: at the moment, a survey of his designs titled "Su Pietra" is on view at a 16th-century castle in Italy, and "Urbanism: Steven Holl + Li Hu," an exhibition highlighting his work in China, is being displayed in Hangzhou. Known for his delicate watercolor building schematics, Holl last month won two International Architecture Awards, for the Knut Hamsun Center in Norway and the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark. In a statement on his Web site, Holl said of his newest commission: "we envision a building hovering and porous, open to the public park. A luminous form of opportunity for knowledge, standing on its own reflection in the East River."