[KS] Human-Oriented Architecture; What is a house?

Frank M. Tedesco tedesco at uriel.net
Thu Jul 9 11:33:37 EDT 1998


>               Shin Young-hoon Revives Human-Oriented
>               Architecture of Korea                        
>               >               07/08
> 
>               By Yang Sung-jin
> 
>               Staff Reporter
> 
>               Kunchongjon, the office where the Choson kings used to work
>               at Kyongbok Palace in central Seoul, attracts numerous
>               visitors from home and abroad. Yet few probably pay much
>               attention to a large painting located behind the royal
>               throne.
> 
>               Shin Young-hoon, however, thinks the painting is the fountain
>               of inspiration, speaking volumes about the Choson Dynasty and
>               its humanistic ideology.
> 
>               For instance, the sun and the moon in the upper part of the
>               painting suggest the mysterious mechanism of universe which
>               decides the fate of human beings. The five mountains in the
>               painting indicate sacred places from which messengers of the
>               heaven descended to earth to establish a nation _ a mythical
>               notion commonly found in Korean folklore and nation- founding
>               stories. The waterfalls in the mountains symbolize a vigorous
>               life energy and the towering trees reflect the public's wish
>               for the prosperity of their offspring. As a whole, the
>               picture sums up a unique ideal about the ways of governing a
>               nation, championed by the Choson kings and its people.
> 
>               ``Tourists should stay there for at least an hour in order to
>               get a sense of how the Choson people lived. But there is no
>               guidebook whatsoever introducing the Kyongbok Palace
>               properly,'' said Shin, 63, who has devoted the last 40 years
>               of his life to rediscovering the marvelous beauty and wisdom
>               of Korean culture as an expert on ancient Korean
>               architecture.
> 
>               His latest book, entitled ``Our Culture, Our History
>               Exploration 1'' (Dae Han Printing & Publishing Co.; 311
>               pages; 13,000 won) reveals what Shin has learned in the
>               course of reconstructing and researching traditional Korean
>               architecture. From Kyongbok Palace to Cheju Island to
>               Okinawa, Shin explains the hidden history and underlying
>               traditions of Korea which are embodied in the simple remains
>               that are captured in the eye-catching photos of Kim Dae-pyok.
> 
>               Asked how many books he has written, Shin said slowly, ``I'm
>               not sure, actually. Somewhere around 20, maybe?''
> 
>               The topics Shin has touched on in his books, the first of
>               which, ``Korean- style House and its History,'' was published
>               in 1974, are mostly related to ancient Korean architecture
>               and its history. He has done the daunting job _ equal to the
>               decades-long work of a college professor _ without ever
>               receiving a university diploma. Surprisingly enough, Shin, a
>               high school graduate, taught the history of Korean
>               architecture to students at the prestigious Seoul National
>               University last semester, which prompted a media rush to
>               interview him.
> 
>               Fateful Encounter
> 
>               Shin's peculiar career _ he is at once a top-notch carpenter
>               of ancient Korean houses and the author of numerous books _
>               has often misled people, including a fortune-teller. ``One
>               time, I talked to a fortune-teller, but she failed to
>               identify my job because I turned out to be neither a
>               full-time scholar nor a manual laborer,'' Shin said, smiling.
> 
>               His unusual career began when he skipped some classes at
>               ChungAng High School in the summer of 1955. Instead of
>               studying at school, Shin headed for Namsan in the afternoon
>               to attend a private class in the Korean arts.
> 
>               The person who taught the class was Choi Sun-woo, then
>               director of the Art Department of the National Museum of
>               Korea. ``I liked the class very much, so I took Choi's class
>               with my friend while skipping my regular classes at school.
>               When I talked to him later, Choi suggested to me that I work
>               with him after graduation. That's how I came to get my start
>               in this field,'' Shin recalled.
> 
>               While Shin was working as an assistant to Choi at the
>               National Museum of Korea, he had the chance to study further
>               at a university. Choi urged him to study and Chon Hyong-pil,
>               a renowned collector of Korean cultural artifacts, provided
>               the tuition. Shin entered the History Department at
>               Sungkyunkwan University.
> 
>               ``At that time, I worked at outdoor sites to learn the
>               traditional carpentry. One day, when I came back from the
>               field, I got a notice saying that my name had been removed
>               from school registration because of my continued absences,''
>               Shin said.
> 
>               That was the end of his short-lived schooling at college. But
>               his experiences at the outdoor construction sites along with
>               the teachings of Im Chon, an expert on ancient architecture,
>               offered him a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
> 
>               ``I worked with 80-year-old laborers in the early 1960s. They
>               were pretty old, and some of them worked on the
>               reconstruction of Kyongbok Palace in the late 19th century. I
>               learned from them about traditional architecture,'' Shin
>               said.
> 
>               As time went by, Shin's name spread in the architecture
>               field, which led to a busy life of supervising major
>               reconstruction and repair projects, including Hwa-om Temple
>               in 1961, Namdaemun in 1963 and a Korean housing project for
>               Mexico Olympic Games in 1967 _ to name just three.
> 
>               Especially burdensome was the work abroad, not least because
>               he had to do all the work himself, from basic carpentry to
>               the building and decoration of Korean-style houses in museums
>               and tourist spots. ``At that time, the government had no
>               money, and I often had to work alone,'' Shin said. The harsh
>               working environment forced him to learn every technique
>               necessary for the construction of a traditional Korean house,
>               all of which have contributed to making Shin an undisputed
>               master in the field, with first- hand knowledge and
>               unparalleled technical skills.
> 
>               Work By Day, Study By Night
> 
>               ``The problem was that the museum officials asked me to write
>               a report after the reconstruction project was over. Actually,
>               there was nobody who could do the job. So I had to study at
>               night, reading books about architecture,'' Shin said.
> 
>               In fact, there was nothing else to do except read books
>               because he was staying in a remote area while working on the
>               reconstruction project. For instance, while staying for three
>               years in Chinju Castle to renovate the ancient fortress, he
>               found nothing to do at night. So, he read book after book,
>               including ``The Annals of the Choson Dynasty,'' as long as
>               they were related to the field.
> 
>               What Shin learned from his reading and the outdoor
>               construction projects in which he participated over the past
>               decades was that Korean traditional houses were very
>               practically functional, a fact which has long been ignored by
>               modern Koreans, who live in western-style houses.
> 
>               ``Only Korean houses, I mean traditional ones, have both a
>               wooden floor and the ondol (traditional heated floor) at the
>               same time,'' Shin claimed.
> 
>               According to Shin's explanation, the wooden floor is a kind
>               of buffer zone between the cold exterior and warm interior of
>               a house, playing the role of a bridge _ a unique structure
>               which was developed in regions with warmer climates. The
>               ondol, which effectively provided heat to the house, was a
>               system that northern people fighting cold weather developed
>               for their survival. The fact that both the conflicting
>               features were combined in one house here suggests that
>               traditional Korean houses reflect a ``creative'' and
>               ``harmonious'' merger of two different cultures in a nation
>               endowed with distinctive, four-seasons climate.
> 
>               Inspiration From the Past
> 
>               Modern lifestyles, contrary to the public's perception, have
>               not been that effective in terms of preserving the
>               environment, Shin said. For instance, the incinerator,
>               developed to tackle pollution-causing waste, has also
>               generated poisonous gas in the process. In contrast,
>               old-fashioned Korean houses were equipped with multiple
>               filtering systems from the ondol to the chimney, which
>               emitted innocuous smoke called ``yonmu,'' which circulated
>               around each village in the evenings.
> 
>               A much more troubling fact about modern architecture is that
>               their harmful component materials often generate deadly smoke
>               when houses catch fire.
> 
>               ``How long do you think high-rise apartments will last? 100
>               years? Then what will happen after the life span of the
>               apartment is complete? Yes, it will only be a pile of waste,
>               which cannot be removed from our country,'' Shin said.
> 
>               For all the arguments in favor of the old style of Korean
>               house, Shin does not insist on adopting the features of the
>               past to present-day architecture. ``The ancient houses are
>               ancient houses. The 19th century house of the Choson Dynasty
>               was configured to a lifestyle in which masters had their
>               servants. The old style goes against today's mode of the
>               nuclear family,'' Shin said.
> 
>               Shin deeply resents the fact that the Saemayul Movement in
>               the 1960s and 1970s transformed the country into an ugly
>               place filled with monotonous and ``cheesy'' slab-like
>               structures.
> 
>               ``Those concrete, ugly-looking houses in the countryside have
>               nothing to do with Korean people. This is because the
>               developers entirely neglected their own culture,'' Shin said.
> 
>               Shin stresses the need to look at our own traditions in
>               building houses. For instance, a traditional house usually
>               has eaves which are lacking in western-style houses.
>               Furthermore, the halls of Korean temples are bright even
>               though there is no electric light.
> 
>               ``The eaves were designed to protect Korean people's faces
>               from the direct rays of the sun. Also, the temple's inner
>               hall was constructed in a way allowed it to maximize the
>               reflected rays of the sun. In short, the Korean people are
>               tuned to the reflected rays in a house, not the direct
>               rays,'' Shin explained.
> 
>               Interestingly, the mode favoring reflected rays is also
>               demonstrated in the faces of Buddha images in Korea. Most
>               Buddha images, whether they are paintings or bronze
>               sculptures, have a line under their eyes _ the very
>               characteristic of the Korean physique which is designed to
>               protect their eyes from the rays reflected up from the
>               ground.
> 
>               Human-Centered Architecture
> 
>               Shin pointed out that modern architecture, especially of
>               apartments, disregards the essential fact that a house is a
>               place where humans live. The low ceiling of the average
>               apartment is not only suffocating, but is also bad for one's
>               health because it leaves no room for the natural circulation
>               of air.
> 
>               ``Humans need a minimum amount of empty space to have a
>               pleasant, healthy environment. That is why the Silla people
>               regulated the construction of their houses with a standard
>               based on their needs as humans,'' he said.
> 
>               The law of the Silla Kingdom dictated that a room of a house
>               should be built with its side corresponding to three times
>               the height of an average person, a measure aimed at ensuring
>               enough space to live comfortably. In contrast, today's
>               standard of measuring a house, the ``pyong'' (roughly 3.3
>               square meters) is totally unrelated to human realities.
>               ``It's what the realtor
> 
>               arbitrarily decided in order to sell their houses,'' Shin
>               said.
> 
>               Also the Choson Dynasty government required architects to
>               allow for a storage space in the upper part of a house in
>               order to accommodate the family possessions effectively,
>               something that is absent from today's houses.
> 
>               In addition, colorful curtains ought to be reconsidered
>               seriously, Shin maintained. The sight-blocking curtains are
>               likely to emit dangerous gases if they are set afire.
>               Instead, traditional screen paper is much more stylish and
>               practical because of its countless advantages, including the
>               soothing reflection of beautiful moonshine at night, he
>               added.
> 
>               Shin's human-oriented perspective is largely the result of an
>               abrupt, zen question posed by a renowned monk, Kusan _
>               ``Jipee Mukko?'' (meaning `What is a house?' in Korean).
> 
>               The mysterious question was a mantra for Shin in his search
>               for the ultimate meaning of architecture.
> 
>               ``Well, eventually I figured out that a house is where people
>               live,'' Shin said.
> 
>               Simple as it is, the perspective he gained from the monk
>               culminated in his marvelous reconstruction of traditional
>               Korean houses and temples. The most striking example of a
>               dwelling built by Shin is the three-story Potapsa Temple,
>               located in Jinchon, Chungchong-pukto, which was completed on
>               June 6, 1996 after three-year-long construction.
> 
>               The wooden structure, the largest of its kind in Korea,
>               measures 42.75 meters in height, which is as high as 14-story
>               building. In completing the awe-inspiring structure, which is
>               propped up by 85 pine tree pillars and was made from 150
>               truckloads of wood, Shin did not use a single nail.
> 
>               Chinese and Japanese scholars and experts on architecture
>               were rendered speechless when they first laid eyes on the
>               grand scale and intricate structure of the pagoda at its
>               opening ceremony.
> 
>               Shin, currently the head of Haerasia Culture Research Center,
>               which aims at rediscovering traditional Korean history and
>               culture, plans to build another Korean-style wooden pagoda
>               soon while continuing to write books and tour the East Asian
>               region in search of the roots of Korean traditions and
>               culture.
> 
>               ``While traveling, I have found so many unexpected artifacts,
>               suggesting that our forefathers advanced into every corner of
>               Eurasia. And that is the topic for my next book,'' Shin said.
> 
>            --------------------------------------------------------------------
>                            (C) COPYRIGHT 1998 THE HANKOOKILBO
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/14_6/9807/t4651240.htm


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%





More information about the Koreanstudies mailing list