Cantilever Coffee Table | Taeho Kwon

Taeho Kwon attended East Carolina University and majored in Commercial Arts, studying Interior Design, and has been a Furniture designer for 27 years and a woodworker for 24 years. During those years, he spent numerous years learning and practicing in building Buddhist temples, Hanok (traditional Korean house), and traditional furniture to acquire the knowledge of complex joinery passed down for thousands of years. While gaining skills through participating in Buddhist Temple and Hanok building, Taeho spent almost 15 years researching the traditional joinery that can last 1,000 years which are forgotten art in our current time. His plan has been to utilize this advanced joinery in his furniture design, as represented in his Sitting Bench / Coffee Table, Entry Table, and most of the furniture he creates. He then decided to pass down his knowledge to all woodworking enthusiasts by having workshops across the US. Since then, he’s been teaching for the last ten years. All his workshops involve complex joinery by making unique projects designed by Taeho or modified from traditional Korean design to suit modern living while utilizing the forgotten methods to last for hundreds of years. Taeho now lives in Southern California, works as a speciality builder for numerous designers and architects for six to nine months, and teaches for numerous woodworking and crafts schools in the US for about three months of the year. He has won many awards in the "Design in Wood" annual competition in San Diego, including Master Woodworker Trophy.