Temple Bell Pavilion of Daegoksa Temple, Uiseong

Records of the reconstruction and history of Daegoksa Temple state that it was founded by State Preceptor Jigong, royal preceptor to King Gongmin at the end of the Goryeo dynasty. However, the style of a gilt-bronze Buddha statue excavated in 1960 from a vegetable plot in front of the temple has been dated to the late Unified Silla period, suggesting that the temple's founding is more properly placed at the end of Silla, and that it was established at the latest by the mid-Goryeo period. According to the Record of the History of Daegoksa Before and After Its Founding, the Temple Bell Pavilion of Daegoksa in Uiseong was completely destroyed by fire during the Japanese invasions of 1592–1598 and the second invasion of 1597, and is recorded as having been rebuilt sometime between 1644 and 1683, in the mid-to-late seventeenth century. The Bell Pavilion is a two-storey pavilion three bays wide at the front and three bays deep. Most surviving pavilions from the first half of the seventeenth century have a three-bay plan, and since pavilion plans subsequently tended to expand gradually from three bays to five and then seven, the Bell Pavilion can be seen to display features of the early, first-half-seventeenth-century phase among surviving pavilion buildings. The pillars beneath the pavilion floor are a mixture of naturally curved dorangju posts, which retain the organic curve of the timber, and gently tapering round pillars, while the pillars above the floor are entirely gently tapering round pillars. The dorangju posts used beneath the floor were widely employed in both houses and temples after the Japanese invasions, reflecting both the difficulty of securing timber and the naturalistic aesthetic of the late Joseon period, and this clearly reflects the timber-working techniques of the mid-to-late Joseon period, the era of the Bell Pavilion's reconstruction. A main girder is usually formed from a single timber, but in the Bell Pavilion two members of the same size are stacked one above the other. This use of a two-tier girder is a rare form; the upper member is judged to function as the main girder proper, while the lower member acts as a supporting beam beneath it — a distinctive feature rarely found in other pavilion buildings or temple halls. Although the pavilion is of the dapo type, with bracket sets placed both above the pillars and between them, the use of hwaban (flower-shaped supports) in each central bay is a feature more typical of the jusimpo (brackets only above the pillars) and ikgong (wing-shaped bracket) styles, making this an eclectic building in which dapo, jusimpo and ikgong bracket styles all appear together. The hwaban are placed on the central bays of the front and sides to support the upper frame, a deliberate arrangement designed to bear the upper structure, and the front and rear elevations appear larger and more elaborate than the left and right sides. The forms of the bracket arms and salmi, and the decorative details of numerous members including the changbang tie beam, all clearly retain architectural features of the mid-to-late Joseon period. Of particular note is the fact that, although the building takes an eclectic form by omitting the inter-pillar bracket sets on the central bays of the front and sides and substituting hwaban instead, it differs from other existing eclectic dapo-style buildings. Surviving records confirm the evidence for both its founding and its reconstruction, and the building preserves its original form well. In particular, as a heritage building that clearly retains the stylistic changes of the seventeenth century, when Buddhist temples in the Uiseong region began to revive, it is judged to hold sufficient value for tracing the process of change in pavilion architecture.

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Where it is

Region

Uiseong, Gyeongbuk

Designation

Treasure · 보물