The Dwell 24: Sisan Lee

Natural forms juxtapose fabricated metal elements in this Seoul designer’s industrial-meets-Neolithic furniture.

The Dwell 24: Sisan Lee

Natural forms juxtapose fabricated metal elements in this Seoul designer’s industrial-meets-Neolithic furniture.

Sisan Lee makes designing furniture seem simple—a casual activity, like throwing together an outfit or whipping up breakfast. When he describes his process, it sounds as if he just goes on walks around his grungy Seoul neighborhood and finds random things to put together. "Recently, my work is inspired by standardized steel pipe," he says, adding that he’s found rocks to use in his creations by wandering through the countryside, as though that were all it took to get the creative juices flowing.

Earth Pieces low table by Sisan Lee

Earth Pieces low table by Sisan Lee

Courtesy Sisan Lee

And maybe designing really can be that simple, but it probably helps if you have an eye like Lee does. His works are simple, often made of a single material, but they’re not crude. Sheets of metal and stones create a shelf; aluminum extrusions welded together form a chair. Though he leaves seams and welds visible, the marks are clean and precise and almost look like decoration.

Both Lee’s process and products recall New York minimalists of the 1960s and ’70s who found inspiration in SoHo’s old factories and industrial supply stores. His severe metal box-and-rocks compositions would look right at home next to Donald Judd’s or Agnes Martin’s work, but Lee heads in a different direction when talking about whom he admires.

His role model is Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata, whose most famous work may be a chair made of purple metal and clear resin with paper roses floating inside, named for Blanche DuBois of A Streetcar Named Desire. It seems like a surprising influence, but, like Lee, who has an architecture practice with a partner, Kuramata designed spaces as well as furniture, and "he was always finding new materials like acrylic or mesh steel and a lot of experimental things," Lee says. 

Lee has some of that experimental playfulness in his work; creations like his Earth Pieces stool, made of scraps given to him by a marble supplier, then embedded in aluminum, show how he finds new ways to use old materials.

The story of that stool’s creation—a marble supplier who had waste scraps invited Lee to do something with them—speaks to his desire to get people to think about more than what they see in front of them when they look at his work. He wants his pieces to be meditative and make people ponder the balance between natural and artificial things, and how the two can coexist. He has a kind of sustainability in mind. "If we have no nature in our life, people can’t live," he says. "We have to keep thinking about how we will develop the world in the future." A simple idea, but one well put.

You can learn more about Sisan Lee by visiting the studio’s website or on Instagram.

Top image courtesy Sisan Lee

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