[Indepth interview]Duo hold a vision for Korea, by design

Lee O-young, Lee Il-kyoo

As design continues to play a key role in people’s lives, Seoul last month was named the host of World Design Capital 2010, a biennial event by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). As this event approaches, some insist Seoul should upgrade its quality of design.
In this era where something beautiful can become a competitive good in the marketplace, Lee O-young, JoongAng Ilbo adviser and former culture minister, and Lee Il-kyoo, chief executive officer of Korea Institute of Design Promotion, met earlier this month to discuss the future of design in Korea in the 21st century. Both men urged, in particular, that administrative bureaucrats who commission public designs be pushed to break out of their fixed ideas.
“Changing a way of thinking may be difficult, but changing a concept only takes a second,” Lee O-young said.
He repeatedly emphasized that new design concepts be established. Lee Il-kyoo said he hopes a national design committee to establish a planning system gets started.

Lee Il-kyoo: We should take the appointment of Seoul as “World Design Capital 2010” as an opportunity. This was a result of a joint effort by all of Korea’s design-related organization. This is a time when our willingness to improve should become stronger than it has been in the past. Today we are benchmarking Japan. While Korea’s national income recently surpassed $20,000, Japan passed that mark in 1987. Japan has taken public design seriously since the late 1980s. These days, the Tokyo area is undergoing a redevelopment and it seems as though they are completely redesigning the city.

Lee O-young: Korea should aggressively adopt the concept of design. Chinese areas such as Pudong or Suzhou in Shanghai in many cases commission foreign designers to work on public spots. As a result, even the street lamps look attractive.
The level of appreciation of design held by central government and local government officials who commission projects here is very important. The Korea Institute of Design Promotion has a lot of thinking to do.

Lee Il-kyoo: Although the design ability of conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai is competitive in the global market, this is not the same for small and medium companies, which account for 85 percent of Korea’s industry. The biggest problem is public design. This includes public spaces, such as playgrounds, parks, apartment complexes and industrial complexes; public facilities, such as traffic signs, bus stops and trash cans; and public images, such as license plates, passports, resident registration cards and tax report forms. Our organization’s goal is to elevate the level of public and industrial design in Korea to that of a developed country. Our target is to enter the world’s top four countries in design by 2012.
Designium, a major design lab in Finland, announces a ranking of nations based on their design ability every other year. Korea ranked 25th in 2002 and ascended to 14th in 2005. We are trying to organize a program for our local government officials to visit Japan, which ranks first or second in public design in the world.
Lee O-young: No matter how many such trips to make observations are made, the first thing is that previously held stereotypes should be broken. With preconceptions already in mind, a person can’t learn very much. When King Jeongjo during the Joseon Dynasty built the Suwon fortress, his retainers asked him why the appearance should be important, when its strength should be all that mattered. The king replied, “What is beautiful is strong and what is beautiful is power.” The design sense of the people of the Joseon Dynasty, such as their use of the sophisticated simplicity of wooden furniture and the special beauty of porcelain, was amazing.
There is a term, “great amateur.” The word “amateur,” in Latin means “to love.” Those who love design are amateur designers. Although such people may not be in the mainstream, they can bring a new spirit to the world of design.
There are arguments over whether we should abolish City Hall. It is possible to surprise the world by preserving the building, while at the same time turning it into a world-class opera house.

Lee Il-kyoo: As I believe that color is the foundation of design, at the end of last year I launched a special group. Its goal was to raise the coloration of objects within this country to the level of developed countries. The central government and each local government is trying to find ways to improve artificial objects, such as sculptures, to be more sophisticated and luxurious.

Lee O-young: Recently, I went to Shinsegae Department Store in Myeongdong. I saw the disorderly fountain become beautiful as it was covered with bright light bulbs. It was very different from the Christmas tree, which only lights up with red lights without any emotion, set up in front of City Hall every year.
This shows how important it is for the mindset of officials in administrative organizations to change.

Lee Il-kyoo: When I worked for the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy in the design department, we started to set up standard colors in 1991. After selecting 1,000 kinds of colors, we created standard-color code numbers and aggressively distributed them nationwide. The work was canceled in part due to funding problems. It is too late to start over. The country is using the color system mixed with the ones developed in Japan and the United States.

Lee O-young: We should teach the people that there are so many different kinds of red. Instead of wasting our time trying to remember that there are only seven colors in a rainbow, even engineering majors in college should take a one-year course on design. Cameras made during the analog period no longer sell in the market. In the past, function came first and design later. Today design comes first and function comes later.

Lee O-young, born 1934, is a former professor of Korean language at Ewha Womans University and culture minister.
Lee Il-kyoo, born in 1950, has been heading the Korea Institute of Design Promotion since May 2006. He worked for the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy as well as the Small and Medium Business Administration.

By Bae Young-chae JoongAng Ilbo [francis@joongang.co.kr]