Dear Korea CQ Members,

On April 21, Korea CQ visited the Korea Furniture Museum, located in Seongbuk-dong. 

H.E. Philippe Lefort, H.E. Philip Turner, H.E. Peteris Vaivars, H.E. Mozes Csoma, Sunmi Nam, Christian Marcos, Lourdes Jimenez Ovelar, Erwan Vilfeu, Patricia Vilfeu, Richard Choi, Youn Jun Park, Il Gwon Shim, Didier Beltoise, and Choi Jungwha attended this event.

Joshua Park, Director of Planning at the Korea Furniture Museum, welcomed our members and gave the tour of the museum, from the area where the official luncheon of the first ladies of G20 was held, the 10 hanoks (traditional Korean houses), to the traditional wood furniture collected by the owner and director of the museum, Mi-sook Chyung. 

The Korea Furniture Museum is one of Seoul’s major attractions. It also was selected as one of ‘The Most Beautiful Museum in Seoul’ by CNN. World-famous celebrities such as the King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Hollywood star Brad Pitt, Colin Firth, singer Victoria Beckham, the Director of the British Museum, and world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid who designed the DDP, especially came to visit it. 

The museum consists of 10 exquisite hanoks. For instance, a hanok belonging to a royal palace, a nobleman’s house, storage, kitchen, and even more. Members went through the stone-gate Bullomun, which is said to make you 10 years younger when you pass it, and enjoyed the view of the city from in front of the nobleman’s house, thanks to the low fences that were built as such to avoid blocking any sign of nature.

After looking at the hanok, members went inside to see the permanent collection. Various furniture were separated by type and materials, ranging from persimmon and maple, to bamboo. Members were impressed by the beauty and ingenuity of the furniture designs. 

Following the tour in the basement, members took a look inside the nobleman’s house, where they experienced chagyeong, or ‘borrowed scenery,’ through the windows. Chagyeong is one of the definitive characteristics of hanok, where people enjoy the extensive landscapes visible through their windows as if they were private gardens, made possible by the low height of the fences that surround the house.

The visit of this museum was a great opportunity to see and learn the way Koreans lived through the beauty and ingenuity of the designs in the houses and furniture.

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Director Joshua Park for the special tour of the Korea Furniture Museum, and to all members who attended the forum.

Our next upcoming forum will be on May 12, where we will visit the new headquarters of Design House and have a special talk on Design by Young Hye Lee, CEO of Design House.

Thank you.

Korea CQ MeeJung Kim