Guiding Her Destiny: Lissa So on Growing Up in Practice and Putting in the Work

By Julia Gamolina, cover image by Coe Hoeksema

Lissa So is a Founding Partner of Marvel Architects, where she oversees many of the firm’s cultural, institutional, residential, and historic projects. She is driven to design innovative architecture that effortlessly accommodates the user and creates uniquely beautiful spaces. She is the Partner-in-Charge of One Clinton, a minimalist 40-story residential tower near downtown Brooklyn; a state-of-the art YMCA in northeast Bronx; and the expansion of the Village Community School in the West Village. Lissa honed her expertise in theatre design renovating the award-winning St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York; TheatreSquared, a nationally-recognized, year-round professional resident theatre in Arkansas; and the restoration of Broadway’s Lyric Theatre, the home of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

She has lectured and served as a design juror at numerous institutions and organizations, including Pratt Institute, Columbia University, the Center for Architecture/AIA New York, and Women in the  Profession of Architecture. In an effort to promote women and minorities in architecture, Lissa collaborated with Phipps Neighborhoods to provide after-school programs to under-served communities. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In her interview, Lissa talks about growing up at Rogers Marvel, which would eventually become Marvel Architects, and advises young architects to go after the work they want.

JG: How did your interest in architecture first develop? 

LS: I was in second grade and had a good friend, Britta Butler. We were playing one day and somehow got to the question of, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Britta said, “I want to be an architect.”

At that time I had no idea what that meant - I grew up in a small town upstate, and there was one architect in the town, an older gentleman. But that stuck in my head. If Britta Butler was going to be an architect, I could be an architect too! We both ended up becoming architects. 

What did you learn studying at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)?

The most important thing I learned was that architecture is a difficult profession, but that I was resilient. You learn quickly in school that architecture is a lot of focus, a lot of energy, a lot of time, and will be a true commitment. School taught me that and practice is living that. 

Lissa with her mom Yvonne Parrot at her graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

How did you get your start in the field? 

I came to New York in ‘97 with my husband, who is also an architect. We met at RPI and came to New York City together, without jobs. Our professor at the time, Frances Bronet, helped us get jobs at Davis Brody Bond. Frances is phenomenal - she’s now the President of Pratt, and has been an advisor to me and my husband throughout our careers. 

At Davis Brody, we met Navid Maqami. He left Davis Brody to start a New York office of an Atlanta firm called Greenberg Farrow, and asked my husband and I, and another colleague to help him start a new practice. There were five of us in this office. We got this thing going and it grew and grew and grew, and eventually went on to become the successful architecture practice S9.

What did you do next? 

I was there for four years of that growth and then I was approached by an architect named Gordon Kipping. He had been teaching at Yale with Frank Gehry. Issey Miyake had gone to Frank Gehry and said, “I want to have my headquarters in Tribeca and I want you to do it.” Frank Gehry said, “I’m too busy, why don’t you give it to this young architect Gordon.”

That was an adventure! We started a practice literally from scratch. First, we rented a space - a really ratty space [laughs] - on Broadway, close to what would eventually be Issey’s store. Frank came in and basically did one of his famous sketches and we had to figure out how to build it. We literally built this Gehry sculpture with our hands, bending titanium sheets. 

“When you’re working in a big practice, you can grab a person to do the door schedule, but when you’re a small practice, you have to do the door schedule.”

Wow. What did you learn from working on the headquarters?

I learned a lot about big personalities and working with famous people. Both Issey Miyake and Frank Gehry were incredibly well-known. I also learned about building something for which there’s no precedent. Doing this titanium sculpture, there was no rule book or guide of how to detail it or make it happen. We had to really figure it out. It was a great point in my career. The store is still there after eighteen years - you should go see it. It’s a few blocks away from Marvel’s office.

How did you finally get to Marvel Architects?

After continuing with Gordon for a little bit longer, I simply wanted a different opportunity and to do some bigger projects. I joined Rogers Marvel in 2002, and worked with Rob Rogers and Jonathan Marvel as they were starting to get more known and the practice was winning great projects. The firm was a small group at the time - just twenty people - but they had a lot of talent and good leadership. I really grew in their practice. 

First site visit with St. Ann's Warehouse Artistic Director, Susan Feldman.

Yes, you grew from junior architect to partner! What was that trajectory like?

There’s a lot that happens in between [laughs]. I did leave for four years, when I was about thirty-five, to go start my own practice. I picked up a little job and shared an office with a friend.

I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it, and also to gain a little more flexibility in my schedule and how much I was working. I had my first child when I was still at Rogers Marvel, and when you have a young kid, it’s a lot. But it ended up still being a lot, because when you have your own practice, there’s so much more you have to worry about [laughs], and I had my second daughter during that time. 

Deborah Berke and I talked about this. Having something of your own may give you more flexibility, but at the same time, you have more responsibility as well. 

Completely. And your resources are limited. When you’re working in a big practice, you can grab a person to do the door schedule, but when you’re a small practice, you have to do the door schedule. And then you have to invoice and collect money. 

I like to think of those four years as my business school. That’s when I learned what it took to run a business - which most people don’t really get to learn when they’re practicing architecture. 

“I had to learn what that meant, to go from architect to partner.”

How did you decide to come back?

I kept in contact with both Rob and Jonathan, and they would continuously call me and be like, “When are you coming back?’ I always took comfort in knowing that I could. The work I was doing on my own was great, but it was smaller - townhouse renovations, a little school renovation here and there. I missed all the big work - the buildings, the cultural work - so one day I told them that I’d like to rejoin.  

What did you do when you came back?

I ended up working on St. Ann's Warehouse. That project is pivotal to my career and what led to me becoming a partner with Jonathan.

Why?

St.Ann’s Warehouse was and is a Brooklyn institution. They’ve been around for forty years.  They were presenting all of this great theater that people were coming all the way to DUMBO to see, when nothing else was there at the time. 

It was this huge responsibility, not only to respect the historic tobacco warehouse but also to provide Susan Feldman, the Creative Director, with a home that she was going to have for the rest of her career. St.Ann’s was the first theater that we did, and that’s led to many more exciting opportunities.

Lissa and Sally Gilliland (The Hudson Companies, Inc.) visiting a quarry in Lisbon, Portugal where the limestone for One Clinton was mined.

Since you became a partner until now, what have been the main milestones?

The first milestone actually came just before I was made partner. In 2013, Rob and Jonathan decided to go their separate ways. They’d really established two practices under one roof. Jonathan decided to take on two new partners and that was Guido Hartray and myself. He was smart to take on two younger partners that will grow under his leadership and really take on the practice.

Since then, we’ve done so much. When the partnership started we were thirty people and building St. Ann’s Warehouse and 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge and Pierhouse. Out of that, we won a lot of great work - a lot of theaters and schools. We have continued to pursued housing. We collaborated on an RFP with the Hudson Company for One Clinton right when Marvel Architects was founded, and won that project. That was an important win, a new 36-story residential tower in downtown Brooklyn. And after that, we got TheatreSquared which is a ground-up theater project in Fayetteville, Arkansas – the first Walton Family Foundation Design Excellence project.

When you became partner, did your mindset shift at all?

I had to learn what that meant, to go from architect to partner. I had leadership skills and I had certainly run teams and directed staff but didn’t quite understand the responsibilities of being partner. I quickly learned that it was not only about leading a team and making sure we have the right team, but it was about chasing work, and making sure we were getting the right types of projects, and doing a good job with both the design and the technical side. 

It was so much more responsibility than where I was prior, but it suits me. I enjoy it. I enjoy the responsibility of leading teams and being able to be involved in many projects and firm initiatives. 

“...when you come out of school and you’re looking at the people that are guiding you, you think that they know everything, and they don’t. Everybody is learning.”

Speaking of leading teams, where does the Puerto Rico connection come from?

Jonathan, my partner, was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his father, Thomas Marvel, was a very well-known and well-respected architect there. Thomas passed away a few years ago, and before he passed, we ended up merging the two offices. We were growing at a steady rate in New York and felt like we could benefit from joining the practices.

However, both New York and San Juan are run as one office. We look at staffing as one picture. There isn’t a New York list and San Juan list. We look at everyone as a team and put staff on projects based on skills and availability, not office location.

What is the San Juan influence?

The San Juan influence itself is hard to describe. It’s a tighter community and there’s a richness to the culture. Although everything that happened after Maria was very difficult for many, it merged the two offices together. Everybody recognized that we are one family and we care about one another. 

We brought staff to New York and put them up in hotels, and set-up workstations in conference rooms. A lot of people’s housing was affected. On a larger level though, Jonathan co-founded a non-profit organization – Resilient Power Puerto Rico (RPPR), dedicated to advancing the usage of solar energy across Puerto Rico. RPPR has installed over forty solar and battery systems in community centers since Maria and has recently launched more initiatives to help those still affected by the hurricane and in response to climate change. The community centers are resilient hubs, so when another hurricane happens and the power goes out, it gives people a place to go to store medical supplies, access the internet and communicate with loved ones. 

Lissa at the opening of TheatreSquared, a new state-of-the-art-theatre in Fayetteville, Arkansas, along with her Marvel colleagues Ariel Poliner and Jonathan Marvel.

That’s really admirable. What about you, where are you in your career today?

I feel like everything I’ve done up until this point was the hard work. Now I get to practice. That means trying to be a little more selective and doing the projects that I really want to, which are projects that are impacting their communities. We have a focus on community-based design - affordable housing, homeless shelters, things like that. We’re doing an animal-care facility right now, which is quite touching. 

Also, the non-profit organizations and the theater work that we’re doing, those have a huge impact on communities. TheatreSquared, as I mentioned previously, is very transformative for Fayetteville and is the living room of the city.

How has motherhood played into all of this? 

As the kids get older, it gets easier. My husband and I are very much fifty-fifty in sharing the responsibilities of the family. But even my older daughter, who is thirteen, is sharing the responsibilities. Last night I said, “I have a Madame Architect interview tomorrow at 8:00 AM,” and my husband looked at me and said, “I have to be in New Jersey for a meeting at 7:45 AM.”

Oh no! It’s all my fault [laughs], 

No, no - so my older daughter says, “I can bring Mila to school.” Everybody is pitching in. I find myself a couple nights a week going to events, or a panel, or something work-related, and the children understand what I’m doing. But it is hard sometimes, it’s hard when you can’t be with them all the time.   

Lissa and her two girls, Emma and Mila, made a pact over the summer to do one "art thing" each weekend if their schedule allows. Recent visits included the Warhol exhibition at The Whitney and The Met Breuer.

Lissa and her Marvel colleagues at the Women's March 2018.

What have been the biggest challenges in your career?

Because I’m a woman and I’m a smaller person - I’m only 5’2 - there’s something to that, and people not taking you seriously. Particularly when I was in my twenties, I looked very young, and I actually had a principal tell me that he’s hesitant to bring me to a meeting because of that. He was just being frank with me, but it’s true. Once people hear me speak and get to know me it’s not an issue. But there’s that first impression. I often find myself in a room of all men and think about these things. Sometimes you can use that to your advantage but oftentimes it’s a challenge. 

Who are you admiring right now? 

I mentioned her at the beginning, but I want to acknowledge Frances Bronet again as a big part of helping advance my career and guiding me. She’s an amazing person and I’m so lucky to have had her as a role model. She’s got such passion and drive for what she’s doing and I learned that from her. 

The other person is Navid Magami, who I also mentioned before, who started S9. He recently passed away - he had cancer - and I often miss him. I didn’t recognize how important he was and what a mentor he was to me. He was always there to ask questions, not just in architecture but also in business.  I would ask, “What would you do? How would you approach this fee? How are you guys doing this?” Even now as I’m growing in the partnership with Marvel, I wish he was here, to mentor me.

“...if you want to do the work that you want, you have to put in the effort and go after it.”

What advice do you have for those just starting their careers?

Know that you do have to put in the hard work. Nothing will just come to you. There is a lot to learn from experience and you have to be patient. You can be proactive and make sure that you’re doing what you want to do, but you do have to know that there’s a lot to learn. 

That said, when you come out of school and you’re looking at the people that are guiding you, you think that they know everything, and they don’t. Everybody is learning, even the people that have been practicing for 50 years. And things change. In the 22 years that I’ve been practicing, the way that we work now is totally different. I had internships where we only drew by hand. Even the way that we’re producing documents is totally different. The materials are different. Everyone has to adjust. 

Finally, what would you say has been your general approach to your career? 

It’s important to recognize that you’re creating your own destiny. You can’t just wait for someone to tell you, “This is the project you’re going to work on, and this is the way it’s going to be.” Particularly as a young architect, people think that they can’t ask. You should go and get on that project. That’s so critical. Even into partnership, if you want to do the work that you want, you have to put in the effort and go after it. That’s creating your own path.