Teo Yang - Seoul search

Designer Teo Yang spent many years studying and working abroad to gain global experience to influence his work, but eight years ago he returned to Seoul in his native South Korea, from where he discusses with Yoko Choy his mission to breathe new life into the country’s famed heritage.

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Yoko: Oh, wow, this is one of your studio’s very early projects back in Korea, isn’t it?

Teo: Yes, it is and actually this house actually gave me a chance to really think about what I need to focus on as a designer, and what are some issues that society is going through that I need to work on as a designer. It was a very important point for me as a designer to meet these old artefacts.

Yoko: Interesting, and was it always your goal, your mission to go back? Because I know you had a lot of experience abroad before coming back to Korea and starting your own studio; was it always your mission to try to bring the Western experience and knowledge back to your own country?

Teo: I mean I always felt the need to learn things from overseas and bring them back to where I am based and utilise what I have learned. But I really didn’t have a manifesto as a designer to really work and rediscover the local values and traditional heritage. It actually started when I moved into this neighbourhood, like I said, eight years ago. And as I was living in this neighbourhood I actually got to experience and see the very rapid change that this city is going through. You know, Seoul is one of the mega-cities and it has so many people and we celebrate change, and we celebrate evolution, and the population is so dense that change and development is a natural everyday thing for us. 

Within that social wave, I’ve seen so many traditional and great things being demolished and seen all these great things that we need to protect disappearing – everything just gone in a second. I wanted to really rethink about what we have and how we could utilise that and how we could keep that in our culture and keep it as very contemporary thing.

Yoko: It’s one of the very interesting things about Korean culture and design; you treasure so much the traditions and the craftsmanship and the history of the country, but at the same time, you're very forward looking, you’re very innovative and it’s very new, it’s very futuristic in a way.

Teo: You’re right on point. [Laughs.] I see it every day, there’s this double message that people are sending out and it’s because of this historical background that we have. We have this great, long history of Chosŏn dynasty that we have developed, but on the other side, going through the darkness like the Persian era and the Korean War, we lost so much of that. There is this one part that we want to re-document and re-archive and also rebuild the tradition that we have.  

But on the other side, since we have lost so much and everything was bombed out and demolished so much that there is this other side that we need to build and we need to really have the economy developed, up to date. That is why you’re seeing a very different side of Korea at the same time. And I find it very interesting that a lot of the people actually ask designers what their role is in developing things, but they also ask you how to preserve and how to rediscover tradition at the same time. 

Yoko: The story can be told with one of your latest projects. I just read about it yesterday actually on Wallpaper.com. It’s the Gyeongju National Museum, isn’t it? Do I pronounce it correctly?

Teo: Yes, very good, yes. Gyeongju is a very historic city in Korea. If I could give a reference, maybe it could be like a Kyoto for Japan and maybe Nanjing for China, or maybe Shiyan for China. We always reference this city as our heritage and where our tradition has actually started and where our culture really started to develop. And there are treasures, so many treasures that are still being dug out, literally from the ground in the province of Gyeongju. We have this great museum, a national museum, placed in Gyeongju, and it was time to get it remodelled and I was very lucky to be part of this great project.  

It’s every designer’s dream to actually participate in the museum project and I was very lucky to be part of it because the museum was actually temporarily closed due to the current pandemic, people weren’t allowed to visit this museum and the museum actually wanted to use this time to remodel and reshape so I was very lucky to get a chance to be part of it. And of course, you know, creating a beautiful space and creating a beautiful museum, it’s very important in its understatement, but it’s even more important to send out a message. 

I always tell my clients and I always tell the people who are experiencing my space that a beautiful space is never a final goal; a beautiful space is a tool to make people think about what this space is trying to talk about, and it’s a platform to generate ideas and make a conversation and start conversations flowing. 

Yoko: And it’s also very nice and very encouraging that such a prestigious national museum will work with a young architect like you. I think in a lot of other countries, this kind of opportunity goes to, I don’t know, more established studios. What do you want to communicate with the younger generations through your work? How do you want them to see or to think of the history that you’re trying to present?

Teo: Well, it’s a very important question that I always ask myself. I would never want to actually mimic the old heritage, or try to reinvent the heritage, but it’s really important to look at the essence of things and the historical background and really bring those stories back to where we live and how it can communicate with us. For instance, this museum, I really wanted to tell the visitors that these old artefacts that were created between three to six AD can still inspire a designer living in the 21st century and can still give us messages and still give us some inspiration in a very contemporary manner. 

I spent a lot of time in this museum looking at each artefact and trying to really feel the energy and the shape and the texture and how I could use these artefacts as an inspiration starting point and translate that into a very contemporary language, pretty much all the details within the museum actually come from these old artefacts. And a lot of the visitors come to the museum actually to find those things, find those links and actually tell us, “Oh I saw this pattern in this old ceramic and I thought it was very interesting and you have actually used it in a very contemporary way to show the lighting effect on the wall of the museum.” It’s all about translating that into a very contemporary language and I really wanted to prove to people that these artefacts not only just belong in a glass case, but can still inspire me. 

Yoko: It’s interesting. I would love to see the museum myself, so hopefully…

Teo: Yes.

Yoko: We talked about we met in Paris last year, in January during the Paris Design Week, isn’t it? Or the Art Week? Anyway. I came to the launch of de Gournay, the new Korean collection you designed for them. And that it’s also one of the very good examples of how to brand or how to bring your tradition and artisanship to the work, and I remember standing in front of the work; it’s like two sets of beautifully handcrafted wallpapers. I feel like I’m reading a story and am being immersed into a world of your culture. Can you tell us about all the motifs and drawings and everything on the wallpaper design?

Teo: Yes. I’m pretty sure a lot of people are already very familiar with the brand de Gournay; it’s one of the most well-known hand-crafted wallpaper manufacturers, and also fabrics, and they create very detail-oriented and beautiful historical wallpapers that you can find, and the craftsmanship is just out of this world. It’s top quality. And it’s always nice to work with brands that really appreciate what they do and really focus on what you’re trying to say and really make a great point of keeping the tradition going. And they actually have a Chinese collection and a Japanese collection, and they were thinking about adding a Korean collection to it. 

And I thought it was such a great chance to talk about Korean traditional art. Korean traditional art is, which are the oil painting and the folk painting, which is for the general usually divided into two sectors masses. That’s why I wanted to introduce two wallpapers, and one is the depiction of the Old Palace and the Old Palace’s garden. And the other one is a daily life painting which talks about how you need to study and improve yourself and be a great person and that was the only way to climb up the social ladder. So despite having these two different wallpapers, it gives people a general idea of traditional Korean art divisions, and you can go into further informative aspects of Korean art.  

When it comes to design, design is always a tool for me to give information and I always hope design becomes a platform for people to have conversations and talk about many different things. And it was very unusual for people to actually encounter these old Korean paintings. I mean I’m pretty sure we have seen Korean paintings – we have seen Chinese and Japanese paintings in museums and galleries, but Korean traditional paintings didn’t have that much exposure if you compare them to Chinese and Japanese paintings.  

That’s why people were sort of more fascinated with this new aesthetic. Like the folk painting that I’ve chosen; the name of the painting was The Art of Learning. A book becomes the main subject and you find a stone next to these books, which talks about being almost like a stone; they are not even moving and really focusing on their studies and really trying to improve themselves. There are all these metaphors and really beautiful stories involved into it, and then I’d seen so many people who came to the launch and to the exhibition wanting to learn more and go deeper into the traditional paintings of Korea, I think it was a very successful project for me. 

Yoko: I think so too. As you say it’s a very – well, first of all it’s a very beautiful design and very nicely crafted, the first impression is already very strong and as you say it’s like a window for people to start learning or to be curious about the culture. It’s a brilliant idea.

Teo: Thank you. And sometimes we don’t change too much of the traditional things. You know sometimes just the way it is seems so beautiful. For the royal paintings, we just changed the perspective of the drawing, the traditional Royal Palace drawings are always a bird’s eye view, so you always look at things from the sky and you get a general view. But in order to make it more contemporary, we have shifted the perspective from sky to a human’s eye level, almost like from the Renaissance tradition, how everything changed from the sky to the people. That kind of tradition is a very small gesture but talks about how we can change these traditional artefacts and make them contemporary.

Yoko: Well that’s amazing, and if we talk about art, I know you work very closely with Kukje Gallery, based in Seoul, one of the most internationally recognised contemporary art galleries coming from Korea. I noticed that you had recently developed a very interesting space concept with them to refurbish the space in Seoul into like a complex of an art gallery and restaurants and fitness centre. It’s such a great concept; can you tell us more about that?

Teo: Yes, a lot of people have actually asked me: is it a gallery or is it a fitness centre, or is it a spa or is it a restaurant? But when we started this project, we really wanted to show a lifestyle that really knows how to enjoy art and a lifestyle that really knows how to live with art. We wanted to sort of recreate this collector’s house and a dining room and a fitness studio and even a spa that actually has art in it, and really combine the meaning of the art and meaning of the space and do an experiment on how things could combine and create a different meaning and create a very different atmosphere. 

It was a very fun project for me and it was a very different project for me as well because the process was really different. Since it was a gallery, my clients, Kukje Gallery, were focusing on art first. Before even deciding how the space design will be, they chose the art first. For the restaurant, they wanted to have Haegue Yang’s piece in it, and for the private room we’re going to put Ufan Lee’s piece. It was sort of a very interesting aspect for me to study the art and then really translate the artists’ theories and artists’ manifestos and thoughts and really try to bring that into a space. It was a very fun project. 

Yoko: Great, is it opened completely, everything is finished so people can start to visit? 

Teo: Yes, everything is finished and we’ve been having really good feedback. We just received the Wallpaper Design Award through this project. And, you know, I’m always so fascinated with art, because art always starts from ideas and art always starts from a very critical eye looking at society and a good true will to benefit society. And sometimes if you're working on a design project, with so little time and such a little budget, sometimes you tend to forget about those meaningful goals and just really focus on creating something beautiful.  

But art always reminds me that beautiful is a very different concept and sometimes you just have to let go of yourself, of creating a beautiful space in order to create a true beautiful space. And you have to have a very great meaning and a great understated manifesto in order to create something that has truth in it. Art always guides me in the right way and guides me to design something that is needed for society. 

Yoko: This is a brilliant way of presenting art to the public. No matter if you’re a collector or not, it’s a way to really appreciate and to experience the beauty of it. And talk about doing different things, you always do very different things and this is what makes your work so interesting. I remember – is it two years ago you start your own beauty brand?

Teo: I just launched a skincare brand called Eath Library, and we’ve been getting a really great feedback, but even with the skincare, it’s true for me to talk about Korean traditional medicine and really talk about a lifestyle, a healthy lifestyle that we have accumulated for thousands of years. It’s more than just selling a product, it’s really introducing to people to the great things that we have already accomplished.

Yoko: That’s great. I have tried that myself, so I can tell you that it is amazing, I’ve just experienced the smell and the texture and also the design of the packaging and the whole concept is just so soothing and so comforting.

Teo: Thank you so much. We don’t even have signage in our store, but people still recognise our brand and come to the store. The designs and the scent and even the lighting and the music, everything just becomes a one voice and people can recognise our brand. I think that’s such a fun side to it. That’s why I am so compelled to create an experience and build brands, and after building this cosmetic brand I’ve been focusing more on branding projects. This year we are working with one of the retail giants in Korea that has numerous cafes and restaurants overseas as well, and we’re rebranding what they have. So it’s going to lots of space, but starting from naming and geographic quality and everything, it’s going to be a fun year for us. 

Yoko: Wow, that sounds amazing, and I can tell that there will also be another way of experiencing your design and your ideas in Seoul if we can travel to the city this year. You’re creating a hotel project aren’t you?

Teo: Well I’m actually having a spa project in Korea and that’s also a branding project as well. We’ll be involved in even creating products as well and I just have to think about all the extra small details and all the experience the people will have in this space. It’s going to be a very interesting project. And through this project, we’re really thinking about what a genuine Korea aesthetic is. So not just mimicking things, but we’re trying to focus on a certain period in our history and a certain aesthetic and we’re trying to really do a lot of extensive research on that to come up with the new aesthetic that we can offer to contemporary society.

Yoko: Well, you're making us very curious about your work.

Teo: I can’t wait to invite you to the spa when it’s ready. 

Yoko: There’s more reason to go to Seoul now, even more. Thank you so much, Teo, for today. We have a very good introduction and understanding of your work and looking forward to seeing all the new projects that you’ve just mentioned. Exciting.

Teo: Yes, thank you so much. I will definitely update you on our projects and even the processes and you can see our final products and also spaces in our website. So please come in and see our work. Thank you. 

Yoko: Great, thank you so much and speak to you next time!