States of Matter by Nara Lee at Milan Design Week 2025
Words by Aliecia Cindy
In the hyper-stimulated landscape of Milan Design Week, where louder often means better, one piece felt like an exhale. A breath. A pause. Tucked quietly among the more theatrical, “look-at-me” showpieces at this year’s States of Matter showcase, Byoung-poong didn’t need to perform. It stood, folded and precise, but alive with something softer—like a secret being kept. My co-founder Melody was the first to spot it. She described the experience less as discovery and more as recognition, like hearing a familiar voice in an unfamiliar room.
Designed by Nara Lee, a Korean designer and architect based in Paris, Byoung-poong is a meditation on duality, cultural, material, emotional. Its construction is strikingly industrial: cold aluminum panels sheathed over grey fiberboard, bound by hand-woven leather straps. But its presence is undeniably human. It doesn't announce itself. It resonates. The piece takes its name from the traditional Korean folding screen, a domestic object with centuries of history in East Asia, once used to divide spaces, ward off drafts, and later, adorn noble households. As these screens migrated into European salons, they evolved into something more symbolic: storytelling surfaces, aesthetic signifiers, emotional markers. Lee’s version doesn’t reject this lineage, it reinterprets it. It speaks in quiet contradictions: mechanical yet tactile, minimal yet steeped in meaning, precise but purposefully imperfect.
Milan Design Week 2025 “ States Of Matter” by Nara Lee
There’s no attempt at polish. The raw seams, the tension in the straps, the meeting point of two textures or cultures—it all feels intentional. It feels like lived experience made visible. The kind of object that doesn’t just look like something, but means something. This isn’t a coincidence. Lee’s work—whether furniture, fashion, or installation—is shaped by her background in architecture and urbanism. Her practice investigates the codes we inherit, often without question, and asks what happens when we reframe them. Her recent collaboration with Low Classic at Paris Fashion Week is proof of how fluidly she moves between disciplines—always carrying with her a quiet critique of binaries.
At Eclectic Scape, we’re drawn to work that resists easy labels. We believe the most powerful pieces are the ones that don’t just decorate a space, but shape how we feel inside it. Byoung-poong is one of those pieces. It reminds us that design doesn’t have to scream to matter. Sometimes, stillness speaks louder.
Head to Eclectic Encounters for more conversations with up and coming artists and designers across the globe
Milan Design Week 2025 “ States Of Matter” by Nara Lee
