Korean designer Eunji Wang's activated furniture are invitations to be read

What if furniture could become a space for reading—or even a way of reading? Eunji Wang's latest furniture series was initiated with this fundamental question. Text x Furniture by Hypothesis Furniture, Wang's studio, offers an understanding of how text might intertwine with functional design in surprisingly novel forms. The pieces comprising a cabinet, shelf, table and lamp are all conceived with the page of a book in mind. As the furniture designer writes in her concept note, "[Text x Furniture] experiments with how the shapes and structures of furniture can enrich the reader's reading experience."

The Korean designer was inspired to create product designs that might probe the relationship between textual elements and spatiality because of an inherent interest in writing, as she notes in conversation. Wang's love for documenting her design process in the form of essays or journal entries led her to question how the analogue aspects of writing, reading and engaging with words might be sustained in a digital age. As she elaborates to STIR, "In today's image- and video-driven culture, I began to think about how text might survive through physical form. As a result, I started imagining structures where the experience of using the furniture itself becomes an act of reading." Extending this playful concept, Text x Furniture is almost whimsically direct in interpretation.

While pages are inserted into the collection's table design, making it look like a book that has been unfurled, the lamp design incorporates leaflets almost as if they were shades for the light. The movable parts of the lamp appear as if you were leafing through a book. The shelf, on the other hand, is only wide enough to hold a few leaflets at one time, stacked on top of each other. The sliding door conceals and reveals the pages in turns, inviting curiosity and engagement from the viewer. Similarly, the cabinet includes small niches to hold paper and thin slots through which users can feed paper into its belly.

"Each piece invites a unique interaction, encouraging users to approach text—sometimes playfully, sometimes with greater depth; almost like reading a beautifully written sentence," states the designer based in Seoul, South Korea. For each of her furniture designs, Wang starts working with what she defines as the smallest components of a space, tweaking and distorting the original functions of these.

As the product designer explains, "I mainly work with what I call 'parts', the smallest units of space. These are small architectural components or connectors that, when taken out of their original context, reveal new uses and unique charms." Slightly adjusting their functions to give them new meaning leads to "forms rarely seen in traditional furniture design. I believe that looking at small elements with fresh eyes can change the whole," she adds.

Wang's design process is guided by a unique perspective by which she aims to be able to create a sense of connection between the furniture and the person using it. She notes, "Just as art helps us see and experience life in more nuanced ways, the quiet functions of design can elevate our quality of life and sharpen how we perceive the world. In that sense, function itself becomes a form of art." For Wang, the entanglement of function, form and artifice is activated only by life. She states, "To be used is to be connected—to resonate more closely with everyday life. As users engage with a piece, they form attachments and discover meaning in their own way."