With “In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today”, recently released by Lars Müller Publishers, the New York and Amsterdam based office SO-IL positions itself with critical questions and some answers on housing construction.

Text: Sandra Hofmeister

Monograph as attitude

Monographs by architecture firms are a book genre in their own right. Depending on how they are designed and equipped, they reveal the attitude of the architects and show how they position themselves in the current architectural landscape. Thick illustrated book or modest paperback? Serif font or sans serif presentation of the texts? Are authors included, are there essays? How are the architecture firm's projects presented? Depending on how these details turn out, how content and graphics, photos and plans intertwine, a lot can be learned about the architects themselves. What does that mean? Thick monographs in XXL format testify to ostentatious self-confidence and are often aimed at acquiring very powerful clients. Soft covers in smaller formats, on the other hand, want to be discovered. The monograph by SO-IL is just such a book to discover, in which the office founders Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu reveal their architecture studio's approach to residential construction.

450 Warren, New York, photo: Iwan Baan

Architecture and attitude

The gatefold brochure in a handy format is entitled “In Depth: Urban Domesticities” and brings together various large and small urban housing interventions from SO-IL's portfolio. Dutchman Florian Idenburg and Chinese-born Jin Liu met in Japan and founded their joint office in New York Brooklyn in 2008. Today, they are known for cultural buildings such as the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis (USA) and the Site Verrier, a glass culture center in Meisenthal in the Vosges mountains in France. With their handy new monograph, they position themselves as an open-minded architectural practice that tackles current issues of living, in different countries and on different scales.

450 Warren, New York, photo: Iwan Baan

No frills

The book's texts are set calmly and without frills in a sans serif font. The reduced font sizes and styles create an easy-to-read, pleasantly unagitated flow of text. The book's graphics are by Geoff Han, who makes a clear distinction between text-only pages and image pages - both printed on different paper. With concise descriptions, site plans and isometric drawings as well as floor plans and sections with scale and black and white model photos, a total of 12 projects of different scales are documented. These include small interventions such as the modular steel platform “Breathe”, which was on show a few years ago for Mini-Living at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, or the 144 Vanderbuilt apartment block in Brooklyn, New York. 

References and photo essays

Generous photo essays with edge-to-edge illustrations by Iwan Baan and Naho Kubota show the three multi-storey residential buildings Bergen Residence and 144 Vanderbilt in New York and Las Américas in León, Mexico in impressive photographs that document everyday life with and in the architecture and bring the individual residential complexes and their interiors to life. Printed on art paper, these photo series are a clear highlight of the compact, 360-page book. Another is the introduction by Jin Liu, a personal statement on what it means to be at home and how SO-IL approaches the question of housing. The architect draws a wide arc from the history to the housing projects of her office. She interprets the concept and forms of community with commitment and with many references to theory - from Hannes Meyer to Hannah Arend and the “Pillow Book” by court lady Sei Shonagon, which dates from the late Heian period, the golden age of Japanese culture around 1100, before finally arriving at the challenges of today. In order to explore new paths for the individual home and for communal living, it takes courage to explore the boundaries: “...we need to rediscover and learn to live in liminal spaces - in-depth”.

At the end

In the epilogue, Florian Idenburg criticizes the construction and real estate industry in order to finally define the role of the architect against this background and come up with the archi-form of living. “Let us rethink our approach to architecture and recognize the profound layers and connections that make a space truly a home,” he concludes. “Well done!” One would like to shout after reading the book. The monograph takes a bold stance on residential construction - and addresses one of the most pressing issues in architecture in the coming years. It concludes - quite unconventionally - with construction site photos of individual projects.

Florian Idenburg, Jing Liu (edd.), “SO-IL. In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today”, with photographs by Iwan Baan and Nao Kubota, Texts by Ted Baab, Florian Idenburg, Karilyn Johansesen, Nicolas Kemper, Jin Liu, Design: Geoff Han, 17x23,5 cm, 360 pages, 371 illustrations, Softcover, Lars Müller Publishers, Zürich 2024, ISBN 978-3-03778-757-1