Home
Small architectures that hold up everyday life
BongHwan Kim works with metal to create small architectural forms, but what his work ultimately points to is not architecture itself so much as the people who live within it. Through the houses and rooms we inhabit, the furniture we lean on, and the everyday objects our hands constantly touch, he quietly reveals the invisible structures that hold our lives together.
When you stand in front of a work by BongHwan Kim, the first thing that comes to mind is less its practicality and more the question, “What kind of time will settle into this structure?” Carefully fitted metal parts come together as a single form, yet they echo the way humans learn, grow, leave traces, and keep going. At first glance they may look like small accessories, but they are much closer to quiet frameworks that steadily support everyday life.
When architectural structure becomes part of daily living
For BongHwan Kim, architecture is the language he uses to talk about human beings. Architecture is more than a shelter from the rain; it is a vessel that holds social life, culture, and identity all at once. Columns, beams, stairs, and grids are scaled down and transformed in his hands, returning as living objects that sit on shelves, hang as lights, or rest on tables. Rather than simply copying façades, he is drawn to rhythm, proportion, support, and balance. Working with contemporary materials such as stainless steel, aluminum, and polycarbonate, he brings structural beauty from the past into the materials of the present, revealing the different textures of the cities we live in and the daily routines we move through. His living objects stand right where architectural language turns into the language of everyday life.
The feeling of joinery that helps us hold together
At the center of BongHwan Kim’s practice are two ideas: joining and connecting. Metal components of different sizes and roles are just fragments on their own, but when they meet at the right angle and position, they become a new structure. This process of joinery is not simple assembly; it is a careful act of adjusting force and tension to find balance. He reads these structural relationships alongside human society: just as people with different backgrounds come together to form a community, different parts come together to create a single form. That is why his metal living objects do not hide their joints. Screws, connectors, and overlapping seams of metal are left visible as traces that show how each element supports another—his way of drawing the “structure of relationships” in three dimensions.
Stool, 2025, Material aluminium, stainless steel and Polycarbonate, 44.78 × 35 × 45 cm
Following structure as a way to look back at yourself
In front of BongHwan Kim’s work, you naturally start asking questions of yourself. The forms may feel familiar—like furniture or everyday objects—but as you follow the inner structure, the way parts meet, and the proportion of empty space, you begin to wonder what kind of structure you yourself are living inside. Bringing one of his living objects into your space is not just a matter of adding “one more beautiful thing.” It is closer to inviting in a set of questions about humans, structure, and relationships. These small architectures, built from hands-on experience with metal and a deep way of thinking about structure, suggest that craft can be more than technique—it can become a medium for thought and reflection.
If you’d like to see more work, BongHwan Kim:
🌐 Visit the artist’s website
📸 See more works on Instagram
