A Comparative Study on Korean and Chinese Traditional Furniture based on the Life Style

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Korea and China have had close relations not only geographically but also ideally and culturally throughout history. Regarding their lifestyles on housing patterns, however, Koreans had a sedentary way of life, usually sitting on the floor while Chinese had a standing lifestyle, sitting on a chair. This paper tries to have a comparative analysis on similarities and distinctions of two countries' traditional furniture that had complied with each lifestyle. This paper also aims to explore the similarities and distinctions of the form and function of the traditional furniture of the two countries and then to put results of this paper in design and plan of modern furniture and housing in our times. The study can be summarized as follows. Even if, cultural and historical relationships of two countries, there is a different of traditional furniture's forms and types. The major differences are as following : Korean furniture is predominantly on the floor level with storing furniture while Chinese one is intermixed with seat-level and floor level styles. These characters seem to be derived from their own housing and life style. In Ming and Qing period China, Their developed in which intermediate people and building. But, in Korea their housing style had floating floor against wet earth, which finished woods, Ondol. Because of these finishing, the Korean traditional furniture was developed into a good form and a suitable dimension for moving. These differences in furnishing style seemed to well reflect building and housing style of each country. And Image map and positioning map can show the differences in a whole aspect.