Architecture - Seoul - page 387

area. 'I deplore the assumption that these old houses are irreparable, dirty and unsanitary', he says, pointing out
that traditional hanok are very easy to modernise in just the same way that centuries-old homes across the West
have been adapted to contemporary life.
The proof of this lies in the Bukchon area, where some 900 hanok remain, the bulk concentrated in a few
streets in Gahoe-dong (also transliterated as Kahoi-dong). 'The preservation program has only been achieved by
the government providing financial incentives to owners for repairs and maintenance', says Bartholomew.
However, according to some local residents, even in Bukchon the hanok as a private home is under threat.
Kahoi-dong 'is being relentlessly destroyed', says David Kilburn, author of Preservation of Kahoi-dong
( www.kahoidong.com ) , a website that documents the abuses of the preservation system over the
past decade.
Contemporary Seoulites may shun hanok as places to live, but tourists clearly love them if the increasing
number of hanok guesthouses is anything to go by. Ahn Young-hwan, owner of Rak-Ko-Jae, a hanok guest-
house in Bukchon, was one of the first people to suggest that hanok be used in this way. 'People thought I was
crazy', he says, 'but now many more people are doing it'.
For Ahn, hanok are the 'vessels that contain Korean culture' and a way of experiencing the joys of an ana-
logue life in an increasingly digital society. It's a view that Bartholomew underlines when he says that living in
his hanok has 'filled my life with peace and beauty'.
Korean temples, like palaces, are painted in natural colours. Outside murals depict the life
of Buddha or parables of self liberation; inside the shrines are paintings of Buddhist heav-
ens - and occasionally hells. Look for intricately carved lattice in the Buddhist shrines,
and for a sansingak, or Mountain God Hall, which contains an image of the deity in ques-
tion and represents the accommodation of Korean Buddhism to Korea's pre-existing
shamanist beliefs.
One of the programs of the National Trust of Korea ( www.nationaltrust.or.kr ), an
NGO charged with helping to protect the country's environment and national relics, focuses
on the preservation of hanok .
Also visually striking in their command of space and use of natural materials are the
royal shrines and burial tombs of the Joseon dynasty, 40-odd of which are on the Unesco
World Heritage list. In these tombs, each similarly arranged on hillsides according to the
rules of Confucianism and feng shui, are buried every Joseon ruler right up to the last,
Emperor Sunjong (r 1907-10). Tombs are marked by a simple red-painted wooden gate,