Dongchundang Head House, Daejeon

Dongchundang Head House, Daejeon, is said to have been built in the late 15th century by Song Yo-nyeon (1429-1499), the great-great-great-grandfather of Song Jun-gil (1606-1672, pen name Dongchundang), a leading scholar of the Giho School in the late Joseon period. It was relocated several times afterwards, and its present form dates from repairs carried out in 1835. The house is a rare and valuable piece of national heritage: it allows the tracing of Chungcheong-region houses from before the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-98), and its process of change can be clearly established through records such as the ridge-raising inscription and other remains. The anchae (women's quarters) forms a "ㄷ"-shaped plan, rare in the Chungcheong region, and its six-bay wooden-floored hall together with the vertically elongated inner courtyard reflect the characteristics of upper-class houses in the region. The sarangchae (men's quarters) is a long, single-row building of considerable scale, in which the large and small sarang rooms each have their own separate wooden floor, and through the wall separating the men's and women's quarters it forms an exquisite arrangement with the anchae. In addition, the ancestral rites for Song Jun-gil, including the bulcheonwi rite — by which an ancestor of exceptional merit is exempted from the usual four-generation limit on ancestral worship — and other ceremonies, continue to be handed down unchanged, and the vast collection of old documents held by the clan are a precious source for tracing the family's domestic history and the changes in local rural society from the mid-Joseon period to the modern era. This heritage site is generally open to the public for viewing, but viewing may be restricted owing to the owner's personal circumstances.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Daedeok-gu, Daejeon

Designation

National Folklore Heritage · 국가민속문화유산