One of the most important problems in the field of chemical engineering is the design of hierarchical materials that are ordered on all length scales from the molecular level to the nano-, meso- and macro-scales. The processes of the structure formation using liquid states play an important role in the design Of hierarchical mateials. In this work, silica - mesoporous materials were selected as an example of the hierarchical materials. The processes of structure formation were discussed based on extensive results obtained by many researchers, and the problems to be performed in the field of chemical engineering were extracted: 1) structure formation processes in non-equilibrium states, 2) role of macroscopic interface between phases in the structure formation, 3) evaporation-induced structure formation and 4) external field alignment of ordered structures. The future approaches to the design of hierarchical materials are also reviewed.