Solid Objectives Idenburg Liu (SO–IL) believes in open, thoughtful, and humanistic architecture that creates meaningful cultural and social impact. The studio is dedicated to designing transformative arts and civic projects that enrich communities and the environment.

Founders Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu met in Tokyo in 2001 and formed SO–IL in New York City in 2008 with a vision of a global practice that merges craft and detail-oriented construction with intellectual rigor and a distinct aesthetic. The studio of skilled and committed architects is based in New York and Amsterdam and has cultivated a diverse international portfolio of critically acclaimed projects. Staying true to its founding ideology, SO–IL continues to play a leading role in the wider dialogue of architecture today through building, education, and publishing.

SO–IL is an internationally recognized architecture firm based in New York, featured in The New York Times, CNN, and Frankfurter Allgemeine. Their projects are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The firm has received numerous awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award (2022) and the Architectural Review’s New into Old Award (2023). SO–IL has been named United States Artists Fellows, is an Academician of the National Design Academy, and has received the Prix de Rome in the Netherlands and the Prince Bernhard Cultuurfonds Award. The firm is featured in the 2025 Venice Biennale.

1. How did your journey into architecture start? Did you always know you wanted to work as an architect?

Florian: At sixteen, a school essay on H.P. Berlage, the Dutch early modernist, opened my eyes to architecture as an art that serves civilization. It revealed the enduring challenge of how a building can embody sometimes conflicting ideals.

Jing: I wanted to be a writer. Over time, my language evolved into form and material; architecture is now how I tell stories.

2. What guides your very first steps in conceiving a building, and how do you translate a client’s vision into architectural form?

We begin by listening to context, to use, to atmosphere. Every project starts as a conversation that slowly takes shape. In parallel, there are brooding fascinations and intuitions that find their way to the surface. Translation happens through form, light, and the rhythm of space.

Amant, Brooklyn, New York, 2021 © Naho Kubota

Kukje Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, 2012 © Iwan Baan

3. How would you describe your design style as an architect?

Our architecture is open, tactile, and social. We aim for clarity, but not simplicity — spaces that remain alive, that invite interpretation and change.

The Kukje Gallery in Seoul was our first ground-up building, a heroic feat in many ways. We created a bespoke skin that blurs the line between building and landscape, between institution and form. It stands as a public gesture that remains generous and open-ended.

5. It must be hard to choose from, but what are your favorite architectural works in the world, and could you tell us why?

It’s a tricky question as we admire many works for very different reasons. Our time in Japan has been formative; the traditional shrines, villas, and palaces teach rhythm, structure, and openness. Lessons that continue to echo in contemporary architecture. In the U.S., we find Paul Rudolph’s work tremendously ambitious, idiosyncratic, and curious. In Europe, Edvard Ravniker remains a quiet favorite. We’re connoisseurs and fans – these examples only scratch the surface.

6. What is the part of your work as an architect that you enjoy the least?

The endless selection processes. While we value being in dialogue with our peers, these competitions are often drawn-out and demanding, sometimes poorly managed or conceived. They can be disheartening for teams who invest deeply. We continue to engage, seeking processes that align with the work’s ambition.

7. What are your inspirations? Is there a place, a figure, or an activity that always fuels your inspiration or always re-centers you?

We learn most from places that operate differently from our own. Cities or places shaped by distinct economies, politics, cultures, and skills. Experiencing how others build and live broadens our sense of possibility. Travel, and conversations with others and with each other, remain our deepest sources of inspiration.

8. Is there a motto that resonates in all your designs? A mantra that you live by when building?

To be determined. We like the double meaning: every project is a process of discovery, revealing where it wants to go. Yet it also speaks to our resolve: we are determined to make things work, to figure it out along the way.

9. What do you think the new architectural projects of today need the most? Or asked differently, what is something that the buildings of today lack the most?

Buildings today need generosity to host difference, to embrace uncertainty, to create real publicness in a fragmented world.

10. How do you approach the relationship between materiality and the way people
experience space?

Material and space are inseparable. The textures of materials shape how we experience form, not only visually, but through touch and the body. Implied weight, the roughness of a surface, or the unexpected use of a familiar material all influence how a space feels. For us, architecture is the orchestration of material and form; we never think of one without the other. Material is not a layer added onto space; it is where the design begins.

11. What would be an advice that you wish someone had told you as you were starting out?

Don’t forget to take it easy now and then.

Site Verrier, Meisenthal, France, 2021 © Iwan Baan

12. Finally, what are your 3 favorite pieces from the Philia Collection?

Thank you so much Florian and Jing,  for this lovely interview!