Furniture is just a language

Ten year ago, when I formed Bayer’s Beijing Panel Co. as general manager, I began to think about creating modern arts by using plastics.

I love the furniture style from the Ming Dynasty, because its classic looks are the ultimate result of the joint creation effort from the scholars lived in the Song and Ming Dynasties. Its simplicity and unique classic style cannot be imitated. However, I do not like how the modern mainstream culture judges the Chinese classic style furniture. According to them there are only two aspects: whether the type of wood used is expensive, and whether it’s antique. The actual beauty that resides in the design is too often ignored.

8000 years of Chinese history has left us with layer upon layer of beauty. And this kind of beauty should not be frizzed and not reproducible again. But how to revitalize Chinese traditional furniture in fashion and with contemporary characteristic; it is a real challenge.

To prove that Chinese antique furniture has its unique beauty in design, I started exploring the option of using modern material to make classic style furniture. As I became more and more familiar with industrial plastic material, and more and more confident in the look of transparency, my thought of using industrial plastic material to make transparent furniture grew stronger.

However, after all, plastic is not wood, the technical restrictions are much more than I expected. In the past six years, my work has been to continue improving the technique, aiming to present the beauty of transparent art pieces with outstand craftsmanship.

Fashion must be anti-traditional, yet at the same time, must base on tradition, in order to have a new feeling of life. As I create, I am more and more in touch with its feeling of life.

To me, a piece of furniture is only an external form; it is the language to express what I feel inside.