Glass House Presents is an ongoing series of public programs — including conversations, performances, and gatherings — that sustain the site’s historic role as a meeting place for artists, architects, and other creative minds. At each program, visitors have the opportunity to explore the Glass House campus, view current exhibitions, and enjoy a festive reception.

Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu of SO – IL will discuss their work with historian and theorist Kazys Varnelis.

Florian Idenburg founded SO – IL in 2008 with Jing Liu, an office that focuses on the development of new ideas and their viability in the world. Idenburg has lead the firm to become one of the most recognized emerging practices in recent years around the world. Prior to this, Idenburg served as Associate at SANAA — the practice of Pritzker Prize winners Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa — where he was charged with the design and realization of two internationally acclaimed museums (the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York). He is Associate Professor of Practice at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University; a 2010 recipient of the Charlotte Köhler Prize, an award from the Prince Bernhard Royal Cultural Fund in the Netherlands for exceptional talent; and a 2014 finalist for the Prix de Rome.

Jing Liu founded SO – IL with Florian Idenburg, whom she met while working at SANAA in Tokyo. Liu works primarily with cultural institutions and established commercial brands across the globe. Liu helped the London-based Frieze Art Fair in planning for its inaugural New York fair, including the realization of its acclaimed structure; curated the cross disciplinary event series Stillspotting for the Guggenheim Museum; and researched and re-envisioned museum education spaces together with the MoMA Education Department. Currently, she is leading a team on a museum in Hong Kong for a private art foundation. She teaches at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Parsons The New School for Design. Liu’s studios have focused on urban sites throughout New York City, and envisioned architectural proposals that deal with issues such as latent politics, paradigm shifts and resiliency.

Kazys Varnelis is an historian and theorist of architecture as well as a designer and developer. He holds a PhD from Cornell University and is the Director of the Network Architecture Lab and Co-Director of AUDC. He teaches at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and has taught at SCI_Arc, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT. His books include Blue Monday, The Infrastructural City, The Philip Johnson Tapes, and Networked Publics. He has exhibited at venues such as MoMA, Center for Land Use Intepretation, the New Museum, and High Desert Test Sites.