Chimi Chair 1

The chimi is an ornamental roof-end tile placed at both ends of the ridge on a traditional Korean hanok's hipped-and-gabled roof. Architecturally, it protects and reinforces the structurally vulnerable ends of the wooden ridge beam; formally, it traces a dynamic curve reminiscent of a bird's wing or a fish's tail surging skyward. Symbolically, it has long been understood as a guardian against fire and misfortune, marking the threshold between earth and sky from the highest point of the building. Chimi Chair (1) does more than translate this form into furniture — it carries over the very texture of the chimi itself. The slender slats that compose the backrest echo the feathered grain of the chimi as it lifts toward the sky from the roof, and their varied, fanning angles produce the same volumetric shifts in light and shadow that give the original its distinctive depth. The leg structure beneath the seat continues this logic, radiating outward as the slats descend — an inversion of the chimi's own curve, which narrows as it falls away from the ridge. In this sense, the chair borrows not only the silhouette of the chimi but the grain and spacing of its slats, and the play of light filtering through them — carrying the tactile and visual texture of the tiled roof directly onto the surface of the wooden furniture.