Studio IL Hoon Roh Information

Il Hoon spent 23 years spent in London, passing up opportunities that were being offered to him by multiple studios, and accepting only for a time to collaborate with Norman Foster, an experience which greatly enriched his knowledge of contemporary construction and drawing techniques. But his soul and his Asian culture predisposed him to have another vision. He remembered the art of his ancestors, vases made of knotted paper, "Korean paper vases," during the era when Korea exported paper, or the beauty found in the subtle curves of roofs and stone walls, and delicate Korean ceramic works. It is this sophisticated craft, this improbable construction game, which he explores, utilising the most innovative techniques and materials. Therefore, while conducting his empirical investigations on the basis of natural laws, he progressively entered into supernatural and unexpected realms. In order to bring his models to life, Il Hoon Roh believes there is nothing too complicated, too subtle, too hypothetical, too expensive, too long, or too infinite - there is nothing that can stand in his way. In order to create such a delicate, fluid, and impalpable suspension, he chose to utilise fibre optic cable strands just 1/2 mm thick. The main use of fibre optics is to keep the light inside but Il Hoon Roh wanted to let it escape. For that reason, as one is instructed not to curve the fibre in order to prevent the light from escaping, he deliberately forced the material to generate this escaping effect. He braided a number of fibre optic cable strands together, tying them closer and closer together, in order to create splits that allow the light to break through whilst at the same time not disrupting the harmony of the hand crafted cords. To facilitate the amplification of the light, he chose to combine different methods. The first was to ask Samsung to put at his disposal some extremely powerful, not to mention economical, components, whose purpose is normally to illuminate bridges or buildings, but in this case serve to ...