Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
from which a stone pathway leads to a hall for conducting rites in front of the humped
burial mounds decorated with stone statuary - typically a pair of civil officers and gener-
als, plus horses and protecting animals.
Hanok
Traditional houses, or hanok, are complex in design yet master-
fully understated. These one-storey homes are crafted entirely
from wood, save for the clay tiled roofs, insulated with mud and
straw. The windows are made of a thin translucent paper that al-
lows daylight to stream in. They're heated by the underfloor
system called ondol .
Top Tradi-
tional
Buildings
Gyeongbokgung
Bosingak pavilion
Unlike the ostentatious manor homes of Europe, even an aris-
tocrat's lavish hanok was designed to blend with nature; they are
typically left unpainted, their brown and tan earth tones giving
off a warm, intimate feel. All of the rooms look onto a courtyard
(or madang ), which usually includes a simple garden. Life was
lived on the floor, so all the furniture was low-slung, and people sat and slept on mats
rather than chairs and beds.
Jongmyo
Sajikdan
Sungnyemun (Namdaemun)
Social rank dictated the decorations, beam size, roof pitch and number of rooms - these
rules were not relaxed until the 1930s. The traditional home was also divided into two
sections: the sarangchae for men and the anchae for women. In larger homes, these com-
prised different buildings, surrounded by walls and gates. In the anchae, the women of the
family raised children, did the cooking and ran the household. The sarangchae housed the
library, an ancestral shrine and rooms in which to receive guests, who seated themselves
on comfortable low cushions and enjoyed a tea service.
With South Korea's modernisation, desire to live in hanok waned. Their thin walls pre-
vented privacy. There was no easy space to install indoor toilets. Rooms were small, and
living on the floor had its inconveniences. In comparison, Seoul's modern high-rises
offered amenities galore. Recently, however, Seoul has seen a revival of interest in tradi-
tional homes, with increased efforts to preserve their unique character.
Bukchon has Seoul's largest concentration of hanok , mostly dating from the 1930s. To
see larger-scale hanok in a more traditional setting, visit Namsangol Hanok Village at the
foot of Namsan.
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