Changuimun Gate, Seoul

Changuimun Gate is one of the four minor gates of the Seoul City Wall, located in the northwest. It was built in 1396, the fifth year of King Taejo of Joseon, when the wall was first constructed, and together with Sukjeongmun Gate it served as a route towards Yangju and Goyang. In 1416, the sixteenth year of King Taejong, it was closed to traffic on geomantic grounds and remained closed until it was reopened for passage in 1506, the first year of King Jungjong. The gate was also the setting where troops loyal to Neungyanggun and other supporters, during the Injo Restoration of 1623, broke through the gate to enter the palace and carried the coup to success. The gate tower burned down during the Japanese invasions of Korea but was rebuilt between the seventeenth and eighteenth years of King Yeongjo's reign (1742), at which time the names of the meritorious subjects of the Injo Restoration were carved on a board and hung inside the tower. The stone base is built of long dressed stones, as at Sungnyemun and Heunginjimun gates, with internal stairways giving access to the top of the wall; the northern stairway takes the usual 'C'-shaped form, while the southern one makes use of the naturally descending terrain. The gate tower has a hipped-and-gabled roof with three bays across the front and two bays deep, and its parapet is built of brick without gun-holes. In the timber frame, the main beam rests directly on the column capitals, with a flower-shaped bracket placed above it to support the ridge beam and purlins; above the ridge beam sits a near-trapezoidal decorative king-post supporting the ridge purlin. The ceiling is an open ceiling with all rafters exposed, the eaves are double eaves, and the roof pitch is not steep. The ridge is finished as a plastered ridge, topped with ridge-end and dragon-head finials and figurine ornaments, with cone-shaped caps fitted to the tips of the hip rafters. Today only Sungnyemun, Heunginjimun and Changuimun retain their gate towers among the gates of the Seoul City Wall; each represents an exemplary case of Joseon-period gate-tower timber architecture, and Changuimun is the only one of the wall's four minor gates whose tower, rebuilt in the eighteenth century after the Japanese invasions, survives without major alteration. Changuimun therefore occupies an important place as a gate tower of the Seoul City Wall, carrying scholarly value both for its architectural authenticity and for what it shows of the form of city gate towers in the late Joseon period, while its stone base and stairways are also well preserved, giving it considerable historical significance.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Treasure · 보물