SPACE June 2025 (No. 691)
I AM AN ARCHITECT
‘I am an Architect’ was planned to meet young architects who seek their own architecture in a variety of materials and methods. What do they like, explore, and worry about? SPACE is going to discover individual characteristics of them rather than group them into a single category. The relay interview continues when the architect who participated in the conversation calls another architect in the next turn.
Crossover, PRACTICE
Kim Hyerin (Kim): Lee, you recently participated in Milan Design Week 2025 as an exhibiting artist with GUCCI, right? Did anything interesting happen in Milan?
Lee Sisan (Lee): Flying business class for the first time definitely left a strong impression on me! (laugh) Since I had to be present in the exhibition space for the whole duration, I didn’t get to see many other shows. One memorable moment was getting to talk with Yoshioka Tokujin. He was exhibiting right next to GUCCI in collaboration with the watch brand Grand Seiko. I’ve admired him since I was a student, so it was an honour to meet him as a fellow artist.
Ahn Seohu (Ahn): I was also in Milan for other work, but as soon as I arrived I was super busy meeting people. A fun coincidence was running into Oliver Boualam from BNAG. We first connected during the pandemic, in 2020, through the online exhibition ‘Emergence and Existence of Arbitrariness’ (2020) supported by the Korea Craft & Design Foundation. Although I had never met him in person, we’ve known each other for about four years. I bumped into him by coincidence in Milan, and I ended up staying a night at his place and got to visit his studio too.
Kim: Lee, it seems that you have been quite active internationally, such as being selected as a ‘Rising Talent’ as part of Maison & Objet 2025 (covered in SPACE No. 689).
Lee: It’s not like I design with the aim of going abroad. It’s just that there aren’t many design galleries in Korea. So, naturally, I started responding to queries from galleries overseas. My scope of activity gradually expanded with the participation of a few international exhibitions.
Kim: Lee, you majored in interior design, right? I’m curious how you ended up working as a furniture artist.
Lee: Compared to spatial design, which often remains theoretical or virtual in school projects, designing furniture was fun because of the possibility of actual physical interaction with objects—we can sit and touch them, and really engage with them. I enjoyed the hands-on process too. At the school I attended, students were required to create both furniture and a spatial design piece for their own grad...
