The studio SO–IL was born in New York in 2008. Diverse in origin, our team of collaborators speaks a dozen languages and is informed by global narratives and perspectives. We are both locally-rooted and nationless, coming together as a mid-size, well-recognized company. With our ambitious private and public clients, we explore how the creation of environments and objects inspires lasting positive intellectual and societal engagement.
We have completed projects in Leon, Seoul, and Lisbon, as well as our hometown, Brooklyn, New York.
In a digitized world that increasingly draws one inward, our architecture is outward-looking, engendering meaningful dialogue with what is materially and psychologically outside of ourselves. Our concept home for nomadic living in Milan encourages an active awareness of life beyond routine. At the University of California, Davis campus, we designed a museum that cultivates an intentionally openended relationship between the visitor and the site at the outset.
We design with time in mind. Whether working with existing structures or building from the ground, we carefully investigate physical properties and history. In Meisenthal, France, we transformed an industrial heritage site into a thriving cultural campus in this way. Our interventions are both respectful of their pasts and adaptable to a dynamic future.
We have been featured in the New York Times, CNN, and Frankfurter Allgemeine. Our work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Our team has received numerous accolades, including the Vilcek Award, the Curbed Groundbreakers Award, and the MoMAPS1 Young Architects Program Award. Our New York practice is led by Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg.
Job Floris is an architect and the co-founder of MONADNOCK, a Rotterdam-based office for architecture, urbanism, interior and research. He trained as an interior- and furniture designer at the Royal Academy of fine Arts and as an architect at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture. Floris writes about architecture for various media and is a visiting lecturer at various architecture institutes, currently at the EPFL in Lausanne.
NOT-SO-DIRTY REALISM
Amant, a non-profit arts organization that was founded in the East Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn in 2019, is among the most ambitious new cultural institutions in New York City. Its campus, spread out across two city blocks and made up of four individual buildings as well as a suite of public spaces and courtyards, is equally one of the finest pieces of contemporary architecture to be realized in New York in this same period. SO–IL’s design is remarkable for several reasons, at least two of which deserve closer examination. Amant boasts, first of all, a thoughtful distribution of individual volumes on both sides of Maujer Street grouped around a number of interior courtyards and green spaces beautifully designed by Future Green. This arrangement allows this fledgling institution comprised of contemporary exhibition and public programming spaces, artist studios, offices, and a café to weave itself into the fabric of the city. And secondly, the architecture of the campus features several unusual material choices for a cultural institution. These choices–specifically brick, concrete, and metal–are informed by the grittiness of the urban context and its industrial character, but at the same time, are presented in a highly conscious fashion and carefully assembled so as to elevate and ennoble the ordinariness of these materials. In terms of both urbanism and materiality, architects Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg, together with their team, propose an approach to urban architecture and the cultural infrastructure of their city that is cognizant of historical precedent and, at the same time, suggestive of a model that may be emulated elsewhere in the future.
The spatial organization of Amant into a campus made up of several smaller buildings spread across two city blocks and including a variety of public spaces speaks to the deeply urbanistic thinking at play. Typologically speaking, cultural institutions have historically tended to represent themselves in large, monolithic buildings representing civic pride whose appearance both elevated and monumentalized the program and institutional mission. Another precedent could have been the large number of private art institutions housed in the former residences or studios of artists, lending them a decidedly private and domestic feeling. SO–IL’s Amant represents something remarkably different that is inviting and generous to the public: a complex that is not only the home for art and artists but one that signals its openness and accessibility to visitors and passersby; a campus that is porous and permeable to the surrounding neighborhood. Besides the publically accessible gardens, this quality is accomplished primarily through Maujer Street, which bifurcates the Amant campus in two halves, and by the fact that entry is free to everyone. As such, Amant is a gesture and an offer not only to the art world but also to its immediate urban context. Rather than merely another ostentatious display of an impressive art collection (and in fact, the collection of Amant’s founder, Lonti Ebers, is not even part of the Amant equation), it is a space of artistic experimentation and social engagement; an organization that has the potential to transform its industrial and post-industrial setting by directly engaging with it.
The concept of the cultural institution as a campus is not entirely new, but it is here applied in the sense of urban repair. If other similar project have tended to gentrify their neighborhoods by proposing to radically transform them and, as a consequence, displace long-term residents, Amant’s architectural design suggests instead a sensitive intervention that enhances rather than replaces the character of the existing urban context.
A prominent historical precedent for the idea of the cultural campus is William L. Pereira’s 1965 design for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which consisted of three separate pavilions grouped around a raised plaza with water fountains and embedded into a park that included the La Brea Tar Pits (Pereira’s buildings were recently razed to make space for the new Peter Zumthor-designed LACMA). But while the breaking up of the museum into a set of pavilions responded to the mild Southern California climate that allowed for the central plaza to act as a civic forum year-round, Pereira’s architectural language still boasted a notion of monumentality. In a strong modernist gesture, and unlike the contemporary Amant, LACMA never attempted to blend in with its urban context; quite to the contrary, the museum’s image relied on being at odds with it – a monumental counter-proposition of the unassuming architectural everyday. A look at Idenburg and Liu’s biography may be useful to identify cultural institutions that breathe the same air of relaxed openness and permeability as Amant. The architects met while working in the Tokyo office of SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) before establishing their Brooklyn-based practice in 2008, and it is indeed in contemporary Japan where precedent may be found. SANAA’s 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa comes to mind, where the museum layout is equally dispersed into a sequence of free-standing pavilions and interlocking courtyards and corridors. However, the almost forceful attempt of dematerialization in this Japanese example is in stark contrast to the haptic presence of the Amant campus (of materiality, later), as is SANAA’s decision to wrap their building in a glassed perpendicular walkway that seals off the institutions hermetically from its urban context.
SO–IL’s earlier work offers additional cues for their sense of urban permeability. The Kukje Art Center in Seoul, South Korea, which is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, was likewise masterminded as an art center in the historic Sogyeok-dong neighborhood with its characteristic pattern of narrow alleyways and courtyard houses. The centerpiece of SO–IL’s masterplan is formed by a 12,000 square foot gallery whose amorphous footprint and shape – the architects refer to the metaphor of the “nebula” to describe it – inflects to the specific urbanistic conditions of this sensitive context. In other words, the building is not conceived as a singular object detached from the urban fabric but subtly woven into it. This porosity between object and context is architecturally articulated by a chainmail veil made of stainless steel mesh in which the building mass is wrapped, thus creating a diaphanous membrane that is indicative of what the critic Fred Bernstein has called a “fixation on permeable layers” in SO–IL’s growing oeuvre. This building offers the nucleus of an idea that would be taken up and further developed at Amant, where similar strategies of engaging and immersing into the urban context are at play, albeit on a larger and more ambitious scale and with a different strategy of materialization.
This brings us to the question of materiality. Amant is not executed in the luxurious materials one often finds in cultural institutions – say customized travertine, or marble, or granite. Instead, the accessibility and porosity of the campus is emphasized by the use of inexpensive, ordinary, and mass-produced building materials that one associates with and frequently encounters in Amant’s industrial neighborhood. Among them are various types of brick laid in different arrangements so as to create visually and haptically stimulating surfaces; a similar variety of changing applications
of exposed concrete ranging from smooth to corrugated to raked (on the pavement); aluminum panels (in the upper story of one of the buildings); or galvanized Unistrut channels usually employed to mount mechanicals, here surprisingly reappropriated for the entry gates. These material choices refract the urban context, literally and phenomenally. The aluminum paneling, for instance, reflects the bright yellow color of the neighboring storage building, thereby visually emphasizing a sense of connection and integration. This unconventional use and appropriation of standardized materials and material palettes could be seen in the vein of postmodern citations; a reading seemingly confirmed by the amorphous solitary window in the base of the facade of the building facing the south side of Maujer Street, an explicit citation of Lina Bo Bardi’s apertures at her seminal SESC Pompéia building in São Paulo. But unlike a postmodern “anything goes,” all of Amant’s material choices and references strictly adhere to a (post-)industrial register.
None of this is entirely new, of course. Wasn’t architectural modernism founded on the visual language of the industrial revolution, including the American factories and grain elevators that so preoccupied a first generation of European modern architects, including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Erich Mendelsohn? In this sense, SO–IL’s architectural project is firmly grounded in the precedent and tradition of modernism while at the same time bringing it to the present and, in doing so, renewing it. But more recent precedents come to mind as well, all of which Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu and their team seem to have digested and metabolized into something uniquely their own, consciously or unconsciously. These architects’ reliance on and embrace of the ordinary and materials of the everyday invokes the theorization and celebration of the “ugly and ordinary” in the early work of Venturi and Scott Brown. But whereas Venturi and Scott Brown had the visual language of American mass culture and the pop age in mind when they conceptualized their architectural symbolism for their own present (that is, the 1960s and 70s), for SO–IL the primary frame of reference lies more narrowly in the residues and detritus of an industrial past that is so characteristic of American cities in the age and aftermath of neoliberalism, and that also informs the East Williamsburg neighborhood. Unsurprisingly, in this context, the architects have repeatedly traveled to the post-industrial hinterland of the American rust belt and applied their quasi-archeological (and anthropological) lens to the architectural aesthetic they encountered there.
These considerations prompt us to return to an essay from 1989 that captured the sensibility of the European architectural avant-garde of that period, Liane Lefaivre’s “Dirty Realism in European Architecture Today: Making the Stone Stony.”1 The generation of architects Lefaivre discusses was, in her words, “crashing the gates of accepted formal vocabulary by incorporating into their architectural designs unconventional references to the urban context”; the group “appear[ed] to be ‘learning’ from the frayed, abandoned, once-thriving industrial edges of cities and from their ransacked centers.”2 Plus ça change? Lefaivre’s astute observations of the work of Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel, Bernard Tschumi, and others seem indeed readily translatable to that of SO–IL; and in this sense their work, and in particular Amant, appears to have more to do with OMA than with SANAA. With one important distinction, though: whereas the generation working in the late 1980s architecturally exacerbated the harsh realities of the post-industrial landscapes they encountered on their scavenger hunts,
SO–IL’s approach to those realities is driven by the desire to poetically transform them into what is a not-so-dirty realism. We are reminded of the concept of ostranenie or “defamiliarization” first introduced by the Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky in 1917 (and equally discussed by Lefaivre). According to Shklovky, the critical power of the literary text rests on its ability to break habitual ways of perceiving aspects of reality by defamiliarizing them or making them appear “strange”. The critical defamiliarization of the reality of the post-industrial city is equally at play at Amant and the work of SO–IL more broadly and is, in fact, a defining trait of their ongoing research. It speaks to us both as a celebration and a critical appraisal of the shared reality we live in. Amant renders this reality visible through its architecture while at the same time inviting us to reflect on the invisible forces that have shaped this reality and continue to do so.
MARTINO STIERLI
AMANT BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 2021
THE BETRAY OF THE EVERYDAY
While observing Amant, a quote immediately comes into my mind. One of Rem Koolhaas in an encounter with Toyo Ito, praising the work of the Japanese master as ‘Lite’. As in lite-beer or other consumers-goods: lite is better, healthier while still providing the same experience.
An appropriate qualification for the work of Ito, assuming Koolhaas had no other intentions than to compliment his colleague. Observing Amant recalls this quote because, in this specific case also, the liteness is a distinct quality of the project. Although this might have several negative connotations to some, for me this represents the right angle. For one, by including the offspring aspect: framing the work of SO-IL as part of a longer line which indirectly relates to the work of Toyo Ito. A connection which was established through the practice of SANAA. With both founders Jing and Florian having contributed to SANAA, exposes a link to SO-IL. This lining up of these offices might make the relation more understandable. Because to my experience, working in profiled offices often comes with meeting a strong ancestor. The resonating of such figures seems intrinsically embedded in the thinking and modus operandi of many practices around. Sometimes even without being too conscious about it, just as a part of growing up. Hence, one strong ancestor in the SANAA office must have been Ito, as Kazuyo Sejima contributed to several projects. This connection was also the focus of the 2016 MoMa exhibition: A Japanese Constellation: Toyo Ito, SANAA and beyond. Along the same line, SANAA is resonating in the practice of SO-IL. What does this mean? To a certain extent, this means a shared understanding of spatial manipulations, material strategies, overall expression and atmosphere. And in this specific case lightness and tactility. And let me quickly add to this: as part of the flourishing of a practice, over time these ancestors gradually become dim voices. Or even fall completely silent, as further inventions and rare finds are being made. Sometimes this means a hard break out of the ancestral vocabulary is deliberately sought. And often
a widening of this vocabulary is explored. The lather being a more productive attitude, that I recognize in the work of SO-IL. And the second argument, for considering ‘lite’ as a positive constellation instead of a homeopathic dilution, has nothing to do with ancestry. This is the constant oscillation between assemblage and coherence that makes me read and understand Amant as non-solid. And in this case, the nonsolid brings a precious type of lightness. Conceived as a project assembled, which is cunningly played out on several scalelevels. This is where the proper refreshment of lite comes forward: the freedom of open, non-dogmatic combinations and gestures. I will elaborate on this. Starting with the scale of the urban and the volumetric, the project weaves itself virtually unpretentious into the urban fabric of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Which is characterized by a mix of mall businesses, workshops and storages, accommodated in a fine graining of mute boxes and indifferent brick blocks. Such are these blocks of SO-IL behaving, being rather dimmed and silent, yet relaxed and loosely inserted. And obeying most of the conventions the context offers. At first glance the four structures seem to completely follow the utilitarian stoic logic of simplicity and directness, as they completely blend into the city fabric. Yet, the organic Lina Bo Bardi window on the street side, is the first announcement of something fantastic. Then several subtle deformations show there is more to these new volumes, revealing more peculiarity. The slightly twisted wall, announcing the entrance, starts to catch the eye. And in reaction to this the volume across the street, with a kinked wall along the longitudinal side, announcing the entrance halfway down a narrow alley. Both opposite kinks create a family bond between the volumes. A triangular canopy sticking out, indicating the entrance, expressed as if the cladding is actually pulled-out textile, a gesture completely integrated in the geometry of the diagonal brick-bond. Gestures such as this, form the idea of an oversized garment, a cladding that is allowed to detach itself from its structure below. These deformations together show a
eliberately sought-after imperfection. These are gestures of paramount importance, as they take the project gently away from the absolute rationale. By the disturbing and shaking of the volume’s geometry, imperfection comes along and brings a touch of tactility. All operations that make the structures less abstract, more ‘madeby-hand’ and more of something among us. Don’t misunderstand these as mistakes or any loss of control. Imagine, realizing pure and clear geometric forms already requires an effort, yet these geometric deformations require an even higher standard of sensitivity and subtilty, and a load of effort. Hence, the perfection of imperfection is an essential part of a formal and spatial gesture of assemblage here. Clearly, the boxes are being destroyed, with meticulous ease. Moving over to the spatial dimension and the plans of Amant, I can detect the contrary of the restrained appearance in the street. The robust and mute street side is just a mask for an interior much more fragile and layered. Where the exterior clarity of the buildings is exchanged for more fluent, fragile and soft tones, making it all into a bespoke interior. A spatial sequence develops, where we find an increasing mix of intimacies. Outside and inside. The spaces for exhibition are self-evident and relaxed; no distractions and strong narratives here, serving for appropriation by a wide range of disciplines. And upon a further close-reading of the project, the strategy of assemblage continues all the way, and is brought down to the smallest detailing and materialization. These materials seem to follow other rules, since no clear distinction is being made between inside and outside; or without ever being over-eloquent or showing off with too nifty, clever tricks. What kind of rules? Rules of liteness, would be my interpretation: often materials are rapidly shifting, and are treated as thin wallpaper, bringing a pleasant type of spontaneity. As if an elephant digested by a boa constrictor, thinking of de Saint-Exupéry, the whole complex is coherently bound together by a palette of light greytones. Caused by rather conventional materials such as concrete, glass, bricks and aluminum. Programmed
as I am in wanting to read and find signals for architectural references and quotes, although these need not be in excess. This color-dipping strategy also brings the Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza in mind, the free spirit. Because it always strikes me how Siza manages to act as a camouflaged Baroque architect, with geometries offering beautiful complexities. Yet by covering all in a pristine unifying white, he seems to be able to remain in seemingly unpretentious stealth modus.
Beyond this color aspect, the freedom in geometry seems to resonate an influence of Siza in Amant. Reading the plans, reveals the joy and lust for variation and ingenuity, brought with a self-conscious agility. Where geometric purity seems overruled to prioritize spatial experience, coming from a merging of pragmatics and playful looseness. The splitting wall is among my favorites, making a genuine Baroque poché appear, by solving something in the depth of the wall. And being confined to this set of rather limited materials for making architecture, as we all are as architects, here we meet joy and virtuoso all over. And all is in control.
Having a closer look at the cladding-strategy, I detect several aspects further confirming the idea of assemblage. One pair of volumes is clad, while the other pair is executed in concrete. And within these pairs, more differentiation was added. To start with the masonry-pair, two brick types were chosen. A white cementitious one on the outside, with an expressive bond on the street. A material totally in tune with the ordinary neighboring buildings, yet distinctive from the context by its extraordinary treatment. As the bricks are stacked in a diagonal pattern, their plasticity is increased by catching a load of shadow. A bond recalling the firm rustication of an Italian city palazzo. Such as the pattern of the Gesu Nuovo in Naples, which effectively dramatizes the plasticity of the elevation, by protruding pyramidical elements. In Amant, the bond switches again upon further entry, in meeting the second volume – positioned in the intimate courtyard. Here a brown, textured brick is used to cover the second
volume. An existing structure, which is adaptively reused. This bond is smoother. Since the stretcher-side of the bricks have a vertical carved pattern, this provides a refined, small-grained texture. Concealing the vertical joints which hide the actual size of the bricks, it appears as a mosaic-size. This pattern is the counterpoint of the rough rustication, creating a level of intimacy in the in-between spaces. Subsequently in the interiors, we find stacked brick bonds. No tactility here in these smoothest surfaces, but a bond expressing the ultimate appearance of bricks used as a non-bearing layer, a thin ceramic film. All three bonds emphasize an undogmatic, fresh lightness. As if the following, rather fundamental question was on their minds: “what does the brick want?” - SO-IL comes to a rich variety of answers. On top of the street-faced volume of the masonry pair, an aluminum cladding reads as another analogy with the industrial boxes around, which often consist of a mineral plinth and a lighter steel top. In Amant this top is effectively covering the skylights and installations on top. Although also in steel, this top is clearly pitched to another level. By making a light crown, much more elegant, of slat-panels that catch the sunlight and reflect this by its relief. Over to the other pair of volumes, which have a concrete base. A similar loose approach can be experienced here. The smooth base of the concrete is fine and rather basic. The top of the building is also concrete, but in a strong vertical texturing. In such a specific way, that we read an alienation of the material, as it seems as thin sheets of corrugated steel. After having understood the analogy of industrial sheds, we understand why. A specific moment of joy is the treatment of the pavement in rudimentary concrete. The concrete flooring is executed as if broken. Combed in several directions, a loose and irregular pattern appears. Each direction consisting of thin parallel inscribed lines, catching light in a different way, upgrading the tactility of the concrete floor. Breaking the stiff monotony of the suspect dull abstract architects-floor. And, effectively absorbing the dilatations required for such floors. Both pairs of volumes set their own datum, and cut the volumes up
in two parts, by a clear switch in material, supported by a rich bouquet of tactilities. By lifting up the material intelligence of the project, these switches illustrate the effective modus operandi of transforming the ordinary, the conventional and the banal, into the extraordinary. Expressing a great knowledge and understanding of the intrinsic qualities a material has to offer. Both its limitations and possibilities. The result is a layered project, having multiple histories legible at the same time: the old, the new and the now. Charged with references that whisper their influences, brought into the right proportions. Clearly, SO-IL managed to build an art campus that serves as a dynamic environment. Not being a cerebral temple, but a place for making, for working. A liteness such as this, in the attitude of SO-IL, can only evolve from a heavy base. Amant expresses the work of a generation which dares to travel light, with exactly the right dose to connect to architectural content.
JOB FLORIS
01 Irregular “potato” opening in cip architectural concrete formed with cnc-milled high density foam, architect to provide template, approve final prior to concrete pour
02 Seams between cip architectural concrete continue through opening
03 Line of reveal between smooth concrete and corrugated concrete
04 Approx size of rectangular window frame, beyond
05 1/2” Deep saw-cut drip in portions of window facing down
06 Maintain approx 2” between visible glazing and concrete opening all sides, typ
07 Glass type gl-9 with anti-graffiti film
08 1/4” Per foot sloped sill in portions of window facing up, typ
FEATURED WORK
AMANT
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
2021
Client
Lonti Ebers
Program
Artist studios, galleries, performance space, offices, and cafe.
Design 2014 Completion 2021
Project area
Site area: 1670 m² (Site area), 16,400 SF (Built indoor area), 21,000 SF (Total area incl. Indoor and outdoor)
SO – IL Executive Team
Florian Idenburg, Jing Liu, Kevin Lamyuktseung and Ted Baab
SO – IL Design Team
Pietro Pagliaro, Grace Lee, Sanger Clark, Lucia Sanchez-Ramirez, Álvaro Gómez-Sellés, Kristen Too, Sophie Nichols, Christopher Riley, Alexandre Hamlyn, Regina Teng, Etienne Vallat, Marisa Musing, Tyler Mauri, Julie Perrone, Mario Serrano, Diego Fernandez, Yuanjun Summer Liu and John Chow
Consultants
Project Manager
Paratus Group
Structural Silman Associates
MEP
CES Engineering, Plus Group Engineering
Lighting
Buro Happold Engineering
Cladding Consultant
Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
Civil
Bohler Engineering
Expediter
J. Callahan Consulting, Inc.
Acoustics / AV / Security
Harvey Marshall Berling Associates
Concrete
Reginald Hough Associates
Geotechnical
Langan Engineering, PMT Laboratories, Inc
Landscape
Future Green
Graphics
Linked by Air
Images
© Naho Kubota
© Iwan Baan
DATA INFORMATION
COLLECTION LONG BOOKS
VOLUME
LB 16
TITLE SO – IL
AMANT
ISBN 978-989-53906-8-7
PUBLICATION DATE
2023 September
EDITOR AND GENERAL MANAGER Ana Leal
COLLECTION CONCEPT Tomás Lobo
EDITORIAL TEAM
Ana Leal, architect Filipa Ferreira, designer João Soares, architect
PRINTING LusoImpress
LEGAL DEPOSIT 480255/21
RUN NUMBER 1000 numered copies
PUBLISHER AND OWNER AMAG publisher
VAT NUMBER 513 818 367
CONTACTS hello@amagpublisher.com www.amagpublisher.com
Previous titles about this collection:
LB 01 DAVID ADJAYE mole house
LB 02 NICHOLAS BRUNS guimarães chapel
LB 03 DAVID ADJAYE the webster
LB 04 CARVALHO ARAÚJO casa na caniçada
LB 05 ANDRÉ CAMPOS | JOANA MENDES centro coordenador de transportes
LB 06 ANDRÉ CAMPOS | JOANA MENDES
PEDRO GUEDES DE OLIVEIRA
fábrica em barcelos
LB 07 DAVID ADJAYE winter park library & events center
LB 08 DAVID ADJAYE 130 william tower
LB 09 brandenberger kloter ARCHITECTS
community hall laufenburg
LB 10 brandenberger kloter ARCHITECTS
school pfeffingen
LB 11 brandenberger kloter ARCHITECTS
double kindergarten rüti
LB 12 brandenberger kloter ARCHITECTS school aarwangen
LB 13 brandenberger kloter ARCHITECTS
school birrwil
LB 14 ANGELO CANDALEPAS the castle
LB 15 PAUL MURDOCH ARCHITECTS flight 93 national memorial
Following a period of sustained development and consolidation at AMAG publications, the LONG BOOKS will bring together a unique selection of projects that establish new paradigms in architecture.
With a young and irreverent conceptual graphic language, the 1000 numbered copies of each title of AMAG LONG BOOKS COLLECTION will document works with different scales and formal contexts that extend the boundaries of architectural expression.
