Sun Wentao at Liang Dian Design Center

A rock for the ages? One of the recurring themes we saw from our survey of Chinese designers presented at Beijing Design Week was the use of new materials (lucite being a huge favorite) presented in traditional forms.

Beijing-based designer Sun Wentao's Scholars' Rocks series echoes this method of reappropriation but stretches the imagination—the highly prized naturally occurring stones that have been collected by the Chinese literati for hundreds of years are reworked by the designer as foam sculptures. Traditionally, scholars' rocks were collected based on their abstract aesthetics and thought of as a "tabletop contemplation of the universe." Wentao takes four consideration set out during the Tang dynasty: thinness (shou), openness (tou), perforations (lou), and wrinkling (zhou), as guidelines for his own creations.

Scholars' Rock at Open Studio: Beijing Design

Wentao is no stranger to this formula—his previous works in metal and porcelain take familiar interior elements like vases and bamboo rods and set them in a contemporary context.