Choi Byung Hoon

executed in 2014, this work is unique

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Korean Design

The world-class Korean design explosion is a recent phenomenon, but although we are still in the process of defining the new Korean design scene, the star designers are gracing the scene with a distinctly Korean dialect.  As different as the designs may seem, the forms expressed share some key common traits, including the incorporation of traditional heritage, nature, functionality, sculpture, and visual art.  Far from being scattered, the young Korean design scene turns out to be brimming with accord.

Heritage and tradition are words that cannot be avoided in defining the Korean terminology of furniture design, as modern as the designs appear to be.  Lee Hun Chung employs a 15^th century technique, working with a celadon glaze, reviving this technique and blending tradition with contemporary forms.  Lee’s construction process involves a traditional hand-built kiln, rendering the glaze over several days of immersion and firing.  The blue-green glaze produces an ethereal quality that belies the weight of the ceramic structure.  Similarly, Kang Myung Sun revives an antiquated technique in a modern setting using modern practices and new technology.  Like Lee, Kang Myung Sun incorporates the hand-crafting techniques from bygone eras.  The lacquering (on which the pearls are laid) is based on a two-thousand year old technique.  Kang’s new designs typically take 9 months to create, beginning from sketches to Styrofoam miniatures to life size wood models, then including lacquers and hand-placed mother-of-pearl inlays.  Quoting Kang; “There are a lot of great techniques to be revived but I still need to do research on how to modernize them.”  In the case of Bae Se Hwa, like Kang, the process of creation requires thought and foresight, with modern practice followed by traditional hand-crafting: designs are first digitally produced, then manually crafted using a steam-bending method that makes the wood flexible with startling precision.

These designers’ acceptance of tradition does not stop at crafting and technique.  It influences the basis of the production in more subtle ways.  The incorporation of the ancient Korean method of divination, “Baesanimsu” is prevalent in contemporary Korean furniture design.  This is the positioning of the house with the mountainous landscape at the back and a stream of water in front.  “Baesanimsu” is a recognised inspiration of Bae Se Hwa’s chairs with their beautiful mountain-like back which is supportive of the human form, and the (front) seat itself fluid like the front river of the Hanok house, flowing over with fluid curves on both sides.  “Baesanimsu” aside, the use of colour in Korean design also harks back to the golden age of Korean antiquity.  One will find that the colours developed by Korean furniture designers often follow the traditional Korean colour spectrum known as “Obangsaek.”  This is the colour scheme of the five Korean traditional colours: white, black, blue, yellow and red, representing metal, water, wood, earth, and fire, respectively.  This is seen in the works of Kang Myung Sun where her colouring follows the “Obangsaek” tradition, with black lacquer lining white mother-of-pearl chips.  Her other variation in colour is the juchil lacquer, which is in a red-orange hue, used in ancient royal facilities.  Bahk Jong Sun’s natural minimalist look is almost only ever coloured with minor appearances of red or black. Choi Byung Hoon, who is considered by many to be the father of Contemporary Korean Design, often designs sculptural, free-style creations in black and white.  For example, he might juxtapose a white granite disc on top of a black one, creating a work of art that doubles up as a stool.  Often made of pure basalt and granite, his works are raw in their use of natural, unrefined materials, and meditative for their minimalistic simplicity.  Choi eschews embellishments for a sleek, contoured line.

Despite the heavy influence from days gone by, what makes the Korean design so unique and innovative is its shape.  And even here, the parallels shared between the designers are more than a fleeting coincidence.  The shapes of the key designs very often resemble natural phenomena.  Bae Se-Hwa, Kang Myung Sun, and Lee Jae-Hyo all design flowing, amorphous structures that mold to the human body perfectly, almost as if the designs were ergonomic.  For Lee Jae-Hyo, landscape is a notion that cannot be denied in the silhouette of his forms, with their hilly, undulating shapes that run over the surface of the work.  Similarly, Lee Hun Chung describes the ceramic works he creates in terms of nature, as a “three dimensional landscape painting,” as in his aptly titled Mushroom stool exhibited here.  The form of a natural plant – the mushroom – is miraculously transformed into a sculptural creation of functionality by Lee Hun Chung.  Moreover, the blue celadon glaze employed mimics the colour of the sea almost exactly.  Finally, Kang Myung Sun’s scintillating materials and flowing lines are inspired also by the ocean.  The very fabric of her work – mother-of-pearl – gives a nod to the oceanic theme she implies.  She is known to be influenced by biomorphism – an art movement of the 20^th century shaping design based on natural phenomena and living organisms.

Above all, sculpture and mosaic-like detail are the key elements that tie together the language of Korean contemporary design.  The shaping of Kang Myung Sun’s sea-wave-resembling sculpture in her From the Glitter 2013-10 seat combines with an impressive surface made of a shimmering mosaic of mother-of-pearl inlays.  Sculpture is also a key feature of Lee Jae-Hyo’s work, even as he hammers and chars stainless steel bolts and nails into hard wood.  His landscape pieces refer to quiet rippling waves, with the rolling gestures resembling the “Baesanimsu” mountains.  Sculpture resembles painting if one considers it as the painting of a three-dimensional object.  As such, Lee Hun Chung’s previously quoted remark, the “three dimensional landscape painting,” is an overt reference to the very essence of sculpture.

Evidently, the riveting variety in Korean contemporary furniture design belies the unity in influence that the artists share.  Another theme that runs through the countless forms of Korean design is the tension between the soft and tranquil versus the hard, bold, and rigid.  Lee Hun Chung turns materials often considered lifeless – concrete and steel – into aesthetically graceful, soft-edged sculptural furniture.  Lifeless blocks of ceramics take on a soft ethereal character as in the Mushroom Stool.  To further extend the comparison of lifelessness versus the organic, Lee Jae-Hyo introduces destruction versus life itself, for instance in 0121-1110=111.  His hard woodwork consists of manmade nails piercing into, thereby destroying, the pieces that comprise the whole – yet what he destroys resurrects into life again as it forms into sculpture, landscape and life.  One cannot imagine that the metaphor of the hard versus the fluid can be molded further, but it can.  The smooth, white surface of pearl inlays in Kang’s works is placed amidst harsh black lines of lacquer that appear between the cracks of the white pieces.  Likewise, the soft silhouettes of Bae’s shapes that mold to the human form are made with hard, rigid parallel lines of wood.

Lee Hun Chung, Bae Se Hwa, Bahk Jong Sun and Choi Byung Hoon have had their works appear at the Palais du Louvre in Paris, taking over the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in an exhibition Korea Now!  in September 21015-January 2016. This exhibition brought together Korean craft, furniture and fashion designers who are highly divergent and innovative in their own ways.  But that makes their shared traits all the more exceptional.  The Korean furniture design scene is creating its own trend by virtuous accident.  As such – in using traditional forms of nature and Korean heritage, a unique sculptural dialect, and age-old craftsmanship – the Korean furniture designers have created a scene that is quintessentially, Korean.

Choi Byung Hoon

Choi Byung Hoon, born in 1952 in South Korea, has changed the landscape of Korean design, producing free-form minimalist furniture and creating art using natural, unprocessed materials.  Choi obtained his degree in Applied Fine Arts from the Hong-ik University.  In the 1970s, he was particularly inspired, setting up an association of young artists in 1977 and travelling the world to absorb other cultures, ranging from the Mayan and African to Indian. 

The designer is known for updating traditional forms of design.  Moreover, he often puts together minimalistic shapes of raw materials, and assembles them in original ways.  Known for lack of embellishments in his works, Choi Byung Hoon allows his designs to appear as a natural part of the landscape, assembling granite and wood in their basic states.  Recent works include his showcase at the Design Miami/Basel in 2015, where he created works employing a single piece of basalt as outdoor furniture.  They are characterised by curved, free-style sculptural forms, with some parts polished and smooth, and others left raw.  The sculptures also act as over-sized benches. 

Choi’s designs are found in the collections of the Vitra Design Museum in Germany and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  He has also appeared in solo and group exhibitions since 1983, and was the winner of the 2007 Grand Prize in the Seoul Living Design Fair Award.  Currently, Choi is a Professor of Woodworking and Furniture Design at the Hong-ik University in Seoul, Korea.