Currents, Lisbon, Portugal

During a conversation about the temporary projects of SO–IL, the New York-based architecture office, its founders and directors Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg start laughing, a lot. “Wait a minute, isn’t all architecture inherently temporary?” asks Liu. “Are we not — and isn’t everything — eventually going to cease to exist?” continues Idenburg with a smile.

After ten years of running a firm, it is vital to be able to see the long view. In the here and now, however, this exhibition addresses the specifically durational and temporal practice of SO–IL; the architectural works that are confined to a few days, weeks or months, reflecting a multiplicity of meanings in the atmosphere, attitude, and philosophy of their architectural practice.

Currents presents twelve fleeting designs, from pavilions to performances, competitions, and sound pieces, each exploring persistent leitmotifs of the studio’s work. In this small, focused exhibition, you will encounter pairs of projects, each touching on multiple dimensions of a single motif. The voices of the architects will appear throughout, sharing the relevance of these temporary projects in their own words with each other and with us. We will hear about the origins of their signature styles; encounter references, homages, and books; and identify where these ideas have appeared in later works.

Through six different currents, An Open Work, Rethink the System, World Building, Kinetics and Canopies, A New Skin and Unravelling a Threat, we encounter the dynamic forces and soft transitions that ebb and flow in the life of one of the most exciting international architecture studios today.