Leonard Koren was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles. While a teenager he designed and built a full-scale Japanese tea house out of scavenged materials. While an undergraduate student at UCLA, Koren was awarded a fellowship to pursue experiments in photographic process. He also worked as an exhibition installer at the university’s fine arts and ethnographic museums. In 1969 Koren quit school and co-founded the Los Angeles Fine Arts Squad, a trompe l’oeil mural painting group that executed large-scale outdoor commissions in Los Angeles and Paris. One of the murals, “Beverly Hills Siddhartha,” covered 5,000 square meters and took a year to complete. Tired of painting, Koren returned to UCLA and received a master’s degree in architecture and urban planning. From 1973 through 1976 Koren worked as an artist creating bath events, unusual bathing environments, and paper works about bathing. In 1976 Koren founded WET: THE MAGAZINE OF GOURMET BATHING, an avant-garde publication seminal in the development of postmodern aesthetics. Burned out on magazine publishing, Koren shut WET down in late 1981 and began a series of sojourns to Tokyo to work on music videos for Japanese television. From 1983 through 1986 Koren produced a twice-monthly column titled “Dr. Leonardo’s Guide to Cultural Anthropology” for BRUTUS, a popular Japanese lifestyle magazine. In 1984 Koren wrote and designed New Fashion Japan, a book about the world of Japanese fashion past and present. Stimulated by the book-making process, he continued to make more books. Many of these books are featured on this website.
Authors
Leonard Koren
다른 사람들
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Lee Yu-jin graduated from Ewha Womans University with a B.A. in Sociology and received her M.A. in Art History from Hongik University. She has been engaged in art education for the general public, exhibition planning, and publishing activities at museums. She is the author of Critic Lee Il and the AG Group in the 1970s , Critic Lee Il Anthology and The Birth of a Hero among other books.
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Jeon Eun-kyung
A design journalist, design advisor for grandeclip, and director of C , a magazine focused on iconic chairs. From 2006 to 2022, she worked as a reporter, editor-in-chief, and director at the magazine Monthly Design , overseeing over 200 issues. During this time, she conducted interviews with designers, executives, and marketers from around the world and curated content on projects, exhibitions, spaces, and trends across various design fields. She launched Work Design and authored publications … -
Shunmyo Masuno
He is the abbot of Dokuozan Genko-ji Temple of the Soto School, a garden designer, and a professor in the Department of Environmental Design at Tama Art University. Born in 1953, he graduated from the Department of Agriculture in the College of Agriculture at Tamagawa University in Japan and practiced at the head temple Sojiji. While creating Zen gardens, he has given lectures at schools and museums around the world. As a garden designer, he has received numerous honors, including the Art … -
Zo Za-yong
Born in Hwangju, Hwanghae-do, he graduated from Pyongyang Teachers’ College (平壤師範學校) at the age of 18 and briefly worked as an elementary school teacher. After the liberation of Korea, he moved south, worked as a houseboy for the U.S. military, and at 22, went to study in the United States. He graduated from Wesleyan College and Vanderbilt University and earned a master’s degree in Structural Engineering from Harvard University. Returning to Korea in 1954, he pursued a career in … -
Christopher Alexander
Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander (1936–2022) was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, and sociology. Alexander designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor. Alexander is best known for his 1977 book A Pattern … -
SOKO
정혜선, 권민성이 공동으로 운영하는 장황 디자인 스튜디오이다. 이름 SOKO는 Something of Korea의 준말로, 한국 장황이 도달할 수 있는 미지의 가능성을 의미한다. 디자인, 교육, 출판 등 다양한 활동과 장황을 접목하여 전통과 현대를 잇는 새로운 지평을 열고자 한다. -
Lee Ju-yeon
An architectural critic, journalist, and architectural culture planner. Former editor-in-chief of the architecture and design magazine 《SPACE》, and currently a contributing editor for the architectural critique journal 《(WIDE AR)》. Focuses on the social and public aspects of architecture, as well as its relationship with civil society and urban communities. -
Fukasawa Naoto
Naoto Fukasawa was born in 1956 in Yamanashi, Japan. He graduated from Tama Art University in 1980 and began his career at Seiko Epson, where he worked on advanced designs for watches and other micro-electronic devices. In 1989, he joined ID Two, a San Francisco-based product design firm that later became IDEO. In 1996, Fukasawa returned to Japan to establish and oversee IDEO’s Tokyo office. In 2003, he founded Naoto Fukasawa Design . Since 2001, he has served as a design advisor for MUJI … -
Park Hee-won
After studying Living Design and Journalism & Broadcasting at Yonsei University , they worked as a product development MD. Driven by a desire to shape and engage with stories, they transitioned into the world of translation. After completing the publishing translation program at Gulbab Academy , they began working as a translator affiliated with Barun Translation . Their translated works include Vinyl , Ace , The Outlaw Ocean , and A Bookshelf of One’s Own . -
Kim Jin-a
She studied education at Sookmyung Women’s University and holds a master’s degree in theater and education from the Freie Universität Berlin. She has been a lecturer at the Universität Duisburg-Essen and is currently working as a professional translator. Her translations include Schneewittchen muss Sterben , Mordsfreunde , Erebos , and Effekten af Susan . -
Kim Soo-jeong
He graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Hannam University and the Department of Advertising Design at Hongik University Graduate School of Industrial Arts. He edited and planned Picturebook Imagination , a magazine specializing in creative picture books and picture books at a commercial publishing house, and was the head of the planning team for the 1st CJ Picture Book Festival and a member of the 1st and 2nd primary jury. He is currently the head of Soojung Edition, and has been … -
Choi Hyuk-kyoo
A member of the steering committee at the Center for Cultural Society and a former activist with the Cultural Action. Currently works in the field of cultural education. Maintains a steady interest in technology, culture, and labor while studying cultural theory and social sciences.