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Cadillac goes Park Avenue

April 4, 2014

Korean American lead exterior designer Christine Park sees cars as moving art
Says the current Cadillac lineup reflects energy and luxury to appeal to young people

Park, who is currently working on a confidential project, says she made the switch three years ago from interior to exterior design. (Photo – General Motors)

Christine Park, whose Korean name is So-yeon, continues to see things in her own way. (Photo – General Motors)

By Tae Hong

Albert Einstein told Christine Park to “Think Different,” and she’s made a life of it.

Well, sort of.

The Cupertino resident would drive by the Apple headquarters frequently as a child, and what she remembers is a photo of the famed genius and scientist hanging on the side of the building, big and impressionable, printed next to those two words.

They stayed with the young artist, who loved art most of all then and still does to this day. And they led her to design the interior of the Cadillac XTS in 2010.

Now, as a lead exterior designer at the car manufacturer’s studio in Mich., the 30-year-old, whose Korean name is So-yeon, continues to see things in her own way.

“I see cars as moving art, not just machinery,” Park says. “When I look at all cars, I see reflection, shade, proportion, sculptures.”

Born in Korea, she was 10 years old when she and her family moved to the U.S. It was 1994, and the dot-com bubble was growing, especially in Cupertino, home of tech giants like Apple.

The energy and creativity in the air was infectious, she says, and instead of pushing academics on her, her parents encouraged her passion for art. She had been the girl who was always drawing in class.

Still, even a few years before her studies in automotive design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, car design hadn’t caught her attention. Maybe fashion, she thought. Maybe graphic design.

It was through a high school teacher in a parking lot that she first learned about car elements like character lines.

It didn’t take long for her to see that she could be just as creative with cars as she could with paper and pencil, that behind every car is a designer, she says.

And through collaborations with other Korean designers at Cadillac and even through language — she’s still fluent in Korean — she’s retained her connection to Korea.

Car design is influenced by culture, and vice-versa, she says. Cars tell a story of the world we’re living in, era to era.

If that’s true, it’s also true that, in many ways, the brand has come to be seen by the younger generation as a stuffier, older-generation-friendly alternative.

For Park, the current lineup reflects an energy and luxury she says will appeal to young people. She plans to draw inspiration from today’s culture and from Cadillac’s 100-plus-year legacy — like one of her favorite models, the 1969 Cadillac Eldorado, or like the Cadillac CTS Coupe she herself drives now.

Park, who is currently working on a confidential project, says she made the switch three years ago from interior to exterior design. If she was more focused on user interface and functionality doing the interior, it’s now all about taking those cultural aspects and design elements into account with the exterior.

What excites her is the idea of becoming a mentor. With in-company programs offered at General Motors for new designers and with outside organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters for teenagers, she wants to eventually transition into the role of advice-giver, helper.

“Mentoring young kids — for me, that’s what the future is,” she says.