Myeongdong Cathedral, Seoul

The ground belonged to Kim Beom-u, a Catholic executed in the persecution of 1785. The bishop bought it quietly under a Korean name. After the treaty with France in 1887 made building possible, work went ahead and the church was finished in 1898. Father Coste designed it, and it is the first brick church in Korea and a purely Gothic one — cruciform, the nave 23 metres high and the tower 45. The decorative Gothic vocabulary is left out and the structure copied straight; the effect is much stronger inside than from the street. The bricks were made in Korea, in about twenty different shapes and in two colours, red and grey, used against each other deliberately. For most of the twentieth century it was also the place demonstrators went when the police came, and that is as much a part of what it is as the architecture.

Original Text

Visiting

Admission

Free

Parking

Available

Information

• 1330 Travel Hotline: +82-2-1330<BR> (English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese)<br>• For more info: +82-2-774-1784

Visitor information: Korea Tourism Organization · KOGL Type 1

Where it is

Region

Jung-gu, Seoul

Designation

Historic Site · 사적