One of the question we frequently hear as a student in RISD is probably “Where are you from”. It may look like an easy question to many people, but to me it is a difficult question to answer; I was born and lived in California until I was three, brought up until I was 10 years old in Korea, lived in Sweden for another 6 years and went back and forth between two countries until I ended up in Rhode Island. Although my family and I am fully Korean, having homes in three different countries have made out family to become a slightly different from some other families. Among many small things that show our ‘strangeness’, one of the most evident things would be my parent’s home in Korea; every guest we ever had would always comment that our apartment interior is very exotic and nice. It is not very strange to hear that because our furniture is from all over the world; the kitchen table and wardrobe is from Korea, the bed and TV is from America, living room’s sofa, coffee table and paintings on the walls are from Sweden.
My mother has always been interested in interior goods and furniture, and just a couple of years ago she started a business that trade interior goods and furniture between Europe and Korea. During the past times I had been following my mother to IKEA stores in Sweden, Nagoya in Japan and furniture malls in Korea to dig up a new and fascinating products. As a current illustration student who previously couldn’t make up my mind between illustration, industrial design and business major, the history of industrial design course had initiated me to think back about the relationships between furniture I've been seeing from three different cultures; Korea, Sweden and United States.
Many hundreds of years ago, three cultures owned very different furniture styles because the differences in climate, environment, resource and lifestyles; and also because the technology hadn’t developed far enough to carry people and information around the world so easily like we do today. For example Korean furniture through out Joseon Dynasty (lasted through out late 14th century to early 20th century) were mainly consisting of container forms like wardrobe,
cabinet, chest and etc. chairs were rarely made because Koreans traditionally took off their shoes before coming into the room, and would sit down on the floor cushion. Since they didn’t stand within the room often, the desks and tables were also low. Timber from jujube trees or paulownia trees were popularly used, and the surface of wood was coated with plant oil or lacquered to make the furniture durable and waterproof. Bamboo nails would be used to hold the form together in joints, and the color of the furniture would almost always be dark brown because pigments were seldomly used. When it needed more decoration, gold leaf, nacre, brass ornaments and black or dark red lacquer was used. The most significant characteristic of Korean traditional furniture is its minimalistic design that shows divided spaces of rectangles and squares. Ornaments were never used too much and the design was honest to its material.
In 1950s, Korean War had divided the country. Rapid industrialization caused Korea to quickly absorb the culture and lifestyle from Western countries. Interest toward traditional design has
been diminished and Korean consumers have demanded European furniture in Provencal or Antique style. Ironically and sadly, western cultures seem to pay more attention to oriental design than Koreans do nowadays. However efforts have been made to reinterpret Korean traditional furniture design to modern market, like Hoon-Sang Cho’s works. His designs have successfully combined the motif and concepts of Korean design with new modernism ideas. However it is yet unsuccessful as a product because the cost is very high; the demand is too low to be mass-produced.
Let us look back at the history of furniture in the United State at this point. As far as the records tell us, the Americans started making their furniture since 17th century as beginning of the era of Colonization. Colonies were settling to the new land, and they often brought their furniture from England or France. Soon enough the settlers started to make their own furniture, but its style was merely copies of the furniture from their homelands; usually they would make in 15-year old English style. Shapes of flowers, leaves and crescents were carved into wood and sometimes painted in black, red and yellow. However the carvings were flatter than those of England and overall quality was crude. During the time of still-unsettled early colonists the most popular furniture was portable pieces like chests, trestle tables and joint stools. But as the time flew and colonists settled, bigger but more comfortable pieces like Carver chairs and Cromwellian type
became consumer's favorite. As the Colonial period and the Revolution was over, consumers no longer preferred imported furniture from older civilizations. Many furniture factories began to arise (mainly in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts) and began to produce simple wooden chairs which we now call kitchen chairs. As population of United States grew, Industrial Revolution had triggered some New Englanders to invent machinery that would increase the outputs. As a result the business of making furniture grew rapidly, but the primitive beauty of handmade products were diminished.
This is when Arts and Crafts movement arose in the United States, England and Canada of end of 19th century. Inspired by John Ruskin’s writing and romantic idealization, this movement’s aim was to deny ‘soulless’ machine-made architecture, furniture and decorative art (This movement was a reaction against industrialization, but it wasn’t an anti-industrial or anti-modern movement). In the United States the designers attempted to reinterpret European art (sometimes including Art Nouveau, since it shares same time period) for American taste. This movement inspired many furniture designers like Charles Rohlfs and Ernest A. Batchelder. Then in the early 20th century, architects, artists and designers were greatly influenced by De Stilj’s geometric shapes and bold primary colors and black, white and gray. Also BauHaus’ design tried to stress aesthetic fundamentals and strive for geometric pure forms in product My mother has always been interested in interior goods and furniture, and just a couple of years ago she started a business that trade interior goods and furniture between Europe and Korea. During the past times I had been following my mother to IKEA stores in Sweden, Nagoya in Japan and furniture malls in Korea to dig up a new and fascinating products. As a current illustration student who previously couldn’t make up my mind between illustration, industrial design and business major, the history of industrial design course had initiated me to think back about the relationships between furniture I've been seeing from three different cultures; Korea, Sweden and United States.
Many hundreds of years ago, three cultures owned very different furniture styles because the differences in climate, environment, resource and lifestyles; and also because the technology hadn’t developed far enough to carry people and information around the world so easily like we do today. For example Korean furniture through out Joseon Dynasty (lasted through out late 14th century to early 20th century) were mainly consisting of container forms like wardrobe,
cabinet, chest and etc. chairs were rarely made because Koreans traditionally took off their shoes before coming into the room, and would sit down on the floor cushion. Since they didn’t stand within the room often, the desks and tables were also low. Timber from jujube trees or paulownia trees were popularly used, and the surface of wood was coated with plant oil or lacquered to make the furniture durable and waterproof. Bamboo nails would be used to hold the form together in joints, and the color of the furniture would almost always be dark brown because pigments were seldomly used. When it needed more decoration, gold leaf, nacre, brass ornaments and black or dark red lacquer was used. The most significant characteristic of Korean traditional furniture is its minimalistic design that shows divided spaces of rectangles and squares. Ornaments were never used too much and the design was honest to its material.In 1950s, Korean War had divided the country. Rapid industrialization caused Korea to quickly absorb the culture and lifestyle from Western countries. Interest toward traditional design has
been diminished and Korean consumers have demanded European furniture in Provencal or Antique style. Ironically and sadly, western cultures seem to pay more attention to oriental design than Koreans do nowadays. However efforts have been made to reinterpret Korean traditional furniture design to modern market, like Hoon-Sang Cho’s works. His designs have successfully combined the motif and concepts of Korean design with new modernism ideas. However it is yet unsuccessful as a product because the cost is very high; the demand is too low to be mass-produced.Let us look back at the history of furniture in the United State at this point. As far as the records tell us, the Americans started making their furniture since 17th century as beginning of the era of Colonization. Colonies were settling to the new land, and they often brought their furniture from England or France. Soon enough the settlers started to make their own furniture, but its style was merely copies of the furniture from their homelands; usually they would make in 15-year old English style. Shapes of flowers, leaves and crescents were carved into wood and sometimes painted in black, red and yellow. However the carvings were flatter than those of England and overall quality was crude. During the time of still-unsettled early colonists the most popular furniture was portable pieces like chests, trestle tables and joint stools. But as the time flew and colonists settled, bigger but more comfortable pieces like Carver chairs and Cromwellian type
became consumer's favorite. As the Colonial period and the Revolution was over, consumers no longer preferred imported furniture from older civilizations. Many furniture factories began to arise (mainly in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts) and began to produce simple wooden chairs which we now call kitchen chairs. As population of United States grew, Industrial Revolution had triggered some New Englanders to invent machinery that would increase the outputs. As a result the business of making furniture grew rapidly, but the primitive beauty of handmade products were diminished.
designs, while being completely aware of if it could be mass produced and sold in markets (Arts and Crafts design often disdained the possibility of having the products mass produced). Gerrit Rietveld’s furniture design is a good example of work from this period. This modernism design along with functionalistic idea had continued since the beginning of 20th century until now along with the crisis of depletion of resources, crushing economy and growing population in United States and every other country. Then on 1970s, Swedish company called IKEA introduced itself to furniture markets of United States, Europe and Asia.Now would be a great moment to go over history of Swedish furniture design. During early the 18th century, Sweden was a poor country that constantly suffered from the wars between Russia and Europe, with doubled population to feed. As a result the only way to prevent famine was to immigrate; over 1 percent of Swedish population had immigrated to the United States. Thus part of Swedish culture that could count as luxury such as food, art and furniture design could not be developed very much.
However, Sweden manages to come over the crisis and in the late 18th century, Gustavian furniture design was introduced as King Gustav III got on the throne. King’s extensive travel to France had major influence to the style, and soon enough Swedish designers started to develop its own style with the elements of strong neo classical style on symmetry and straight line columns. Muted and light colors were often used on the designs. Sweden’s design was then influenced by Germany’s Bierdermeier style, which had elements of keeping clean lines and minimal ornaments among the middle class people (who couldn’t afford expensive French Empire style which was popular at that moment among bourgeoisies). The theme of simple elegance that started from here would remain until today's Swedish design.
From the middle of 19th century to the beginning of 20th century there were two vital moments that influenced Swedish modern design for good. First was the Stockholm International Exhibition in 1930, that had a great impact on functionalism, and International Exhibition called H55 (held in Helsingborg) that first introduced Swedish design industry to the whole world. One of the most famous designers that was influenced by these two exhibitions is Bruno Mathsson. Bentwood furnitures, which show smooth curved lines of wood panels, is still considered as one of the main Swedish designs. Timber being the major source of the country, light colored wood of beech, birch and maple are often used in Swedish furniture. The grain and color of the wood is usually left revealed to be seen, and even if it is painted it is usually in bright colors (this color choice derives from long, dark and harsh Scandinavian winter; Swedes knew to appreciate warm colors). The design is aimed to be simple and functionalistic at the same time.In 1970s, people became aware of the limited resources we have on the planet. The very first
country where this realization had an actual influence on industrial design was Sweden. Concerns of growing population, depletion of resources and reduced purchasing power of consumers lead a Swedish furniture company, IKEA’s business to flourish; it was the only company that pronounced Swedish design strongly enough while keeping the price as lowest as possible by producing the parts overseas and leading the consumers to come, purchase and assemble at home. The philosophy behind IKEA’s success can be explained by a quote from the founder Ingvar Kamprad; “It is easy to make a desk that cost 1000 dollars, but it’s not easy to make a good quality desk that cost 50 dollars.”Swedish style had proven to be successful on reading the consumers' needs for many decades now. Its functionalism and affordability had been a successful design all over the world, and the number of design business is still growing in Sweden as we speak. Even in Korea, where classic European style had been dominating the market, news had shown that IKEA store is going to be opened in the summer of 2008 due to the demands of Korean consumers – just like what happened in the United States, and Sweden.
Reflecting back on what we have seen, I believe that even though furniture design of all three cultures started off somewhere very different, now the design is simultaneously developing into the same trend as the cultures become globalized. I think the unification of all cultures and designs was already foreseen as the technology had allowed the world to communicate and travel with ease. However I do believe that it is us, the designers’ job to be pay attention and make use of the essential elements of our own culture’s design in order to develop it further and introducing it to the world. How sad would it be if our future design industry was filled with similar designs with no cultural distinctions? IKEA had already proven that a world-famous furniture design should be able to tell its own stories of its culture. I also want to note that we may be facing a drastic change in furniture trend in near future. The functionalist movement had been going on for almost a century, and we know from the past that a trend tend to last shorter than it did four hundred years ago. One of the most talented designers among us will be designing the future that everyone will want to imitate, and I believe that the hint lies not only in the current era, but also in our past.
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