The Korean Wave

Explore some of the best contemporary design that South Korea has to offer, from extraordinary architecture and colourful art to delicate jewellery and handcrafted furniture.

WORDS Jo Buitendach PHOTOS Supplied

From skincare to film, design and music, South Korea is a powerhouse. The past few years have seen the exponential rise in popularity of the Far East nation’s cosmetics brands, such as Laneige and Erborian, and the Korean film Parasite scooped Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards. Beyond that, did you know that 60% of all Netflix users watched Korean titles last year, or that K-pop groups like BTS and Blackpink are global entertainment phenomena?

In 2022, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London put on a major exhibition, titled “Hallyu”, which translates to “Korean wave”. In that spirit, the show explored the rise of Korean cinema, drama, music and fandom, and looked at Korea’s impact on the fashion and beauty industries. But it’s also worth taking a dive into the world of Korean design – so here are some of the top contemporary South Korean architects, designers and artists to watch out for.

2m2 Architects, founded in 2014 by architect Lee Jung-Hee, aims to present new cultural and social possibilities in Korean architecture, which Jung-Hee sees as too clichéd and conventional. 2m2 Architects’ work has won numerous international awards, and has been featured in DesignBoom, ArchDaily and Architizer. With so many unique, boundary-pushing projects, it’s difficult to choose a favourite, but we love Sista House, designed as housing for young women in their 20s and 30s. The common areas of the structure are almost utilitarian, but the private interiors are warm and comfortable. The exterior of the home is clad in clay bricks, which marry well with surrounding buildings. Also worth a mention is Boombox House – because who wouldn’t want to live in a home named after a sound system?

Born in Ulsan in South Korea, Joohee Han is a jeweller and contemporary object designer. Her latest jaw-dropping works, made of silicone and eggshells, transform into flexible, partly translucent geometric forms. “The human body plays an important role in completing the concept of my work,” she says to explain why jewellery is her medium of choice. “The act of wearing it is an important part of the process; it reveals the subjects of the work. The tactile quality of the materials is an important tool to put my ideas into practice – the experience of touching and wearing jewellery can provide the wearers with body awareness and insight into their movements.” | jooheehan.com

Designer and artist Jihye Kang’s most recent furniture collection, the Purity Series, uses – and is inspired by – transparent acrylic as a medium. Kang was particularly interested in the idea of reflection and refraction, as well as the dual functionality that acrylic displays by simultaneously revealing and obscuring. The Purity Series includes sidetables, lightboxes and cupboards made of uniformly arranged thick acrylic rods and stainless steel. | jihyekang.com

Born in Seoul, award-winning artist June Lee trained in the US before returning to her city of birth, where she now teaches and works. She is known for using the East Asian element of thread, representative of human life, to form human figure-like works. She also wraps found ceramics and other found objects with thread. “My work focuses on the individual as a unit, and then as a constituent of the contemporary society of today,” she says. “I shed light on the social phenomena surrounding the individual in a contemporary social space, especially negative conditions such as bystander effect, mass psychology, scapegoating and various forms of bias.” | junelee.kr

South Korea has a history of making beautiful ceramics that dates back many thousands of years. Continuing the tradition, Guumba Pottery is a design studio that creates handmade ceramics with materials found in nature. The work comes in a variety of colours, and features a quirky array of motifs, characters and patterns. Guumba’s charming vases, pots, planters, jugs and crockery embrace modern design while retaining traditional elements. | guumbapottery.com

Sun Woo is a fun-to-wear clothing and accessories brand created in 2019 by Sun Woo Chang, an alumnus of Central Saint Martins arts and design college in London. Her work, which has appeared on the cover of British Vogue, is experimental yet simple, and channels unconventional storytelling, with the tent-like “pop-up” element becoming a recurring theme in her whimsical designs. Inspired by her childhood, her graphic O bags are minimalist neoprene works of art that promise to “make any wardrobe dance”, while each pair of her Tri-Quare shoes and boots (the name is a combo of “triangle“ and “square“) features one pointy and one square toe. The latter especially embody the fun-to-wear philosophy of the brand, expressing misshaped appearances, as if a child were putting together a puzzle. | sunwooworld.com

Seoul-based furniture designer and artist Jeongseob Kim focuses on natural materials that he believes should be processed by hand, such as wood, metal and stone, as well as fibreglass, reinforced plastic and cement. Having studied in both South Korea and in the UK, he is able to fuse influences from both. We love his latest anodized aluminium works, which remind us of the iconic “Brick Blocks” in the classic Nintendo game, Super Mario Bros. | @jeongseob_kim

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