Shinkyu Shon (1993) delivers the story of an in-depthical analysis of the problem you wanted to feel and talk about. In the Korean beauty, he has been living with reinterpretation in the author's language and is implementing it as functional beauty.
Split
I use the timber which was used in making Korean traditional housing (called Hanok). Stone and wood were used as materials that restrain materialistic desire, which is one of our moral instructions. I wanted to keep the natural trait of the material by reducing artificial process applied to it as much as possible. There are two aesthetic views behind this. They are the aesthetics of art and moderation. One (the aesthetics of art{技藝}) is to get some formative beauty through materials. and the other (the aesthetics of moderation{節制}) is thought to be a process of cultivating myself to restrain desires by minimizing technical skills. This lead to the concept of doing nothing (you can do everything by doing nothing.{無爲}) Our forefathers saw the natural trait of the material and didn’t evaluate its value only by looking at the appearance. They cherished its role and function as architectural material. I tried to adopt their view in my work by not processing timber’s original trait.
On the contrary, mirror stainless steel and tempered glass are manufactured through accurate precision under mass production system in factories. They are straightforward and standardized, which is quite opposite aesthetic trait that was used in Korean traditional architecture. I hope to call this straight-forward aesthetics. In my work, it also means the rapid materialistic growth.
I would like to express these opposite concepts of aesthetics as one unique concept with a formative language of segmentation. These two contrasting aesthetics become to get a certain function by supporting and sustaining each other. It also makes them to act as furniture. Although these two materials are not harmonized visually, but I tried my best to express the dynamic and beautiful shape by matching two different materials.
