Dream weaver

Kwangho Lee goes from collectible design to a new furniture range for Hem

- ROSA BERTOLI

Kwangho Lee became a furniture designer by chance. Originally trained in metal art and design at Seoul’s Hongik University, he created a few furniture pieces for his 2007 graduation show, which caught the attention of a number of design galleries, including Montreal’s Commissaires and New York’s Johnson Trading Gallery. Over the past 15 years, the Korean designer’s body of work has expanded to include furniture, installations and interiors, and he is now launching his first collection outside the collectible design circuit, in collaboration with Swedish furniture brand Hem.

The result of fabrication experiments with wood, stone, straw, sculpted styrofoam, knotted nylon cord and enamelled copper, Lee’s heavily process-based work conveys an excitement for materials and craft that has deep roots in his childhood.

‘My grandparents have been a great influence. They were farmers and so naturally that had an effect on the way I think and create with my hands,’ he explains. Observing his grandparents using natural materials to make tools and objects fostered an interest in making things with his hands. Lee would whittle wood to make slingshots and play with handmade water wheels by a stream. ‘The joy of making is central to explaining my work,’ he says.

His designs are a natural progression of his upbringing. Working from two studio spaces (a smaller studio in Seoul’s Seongsudong neighbourhood, as well as a larger workshop in nearby Hanam), Lee knots, cuts, bakes and welds materials to create refined furniture that bears traces of its manufacturing process.