Daeungjeon Hall of Hwagyesa Temple

Hwagyesa Temple was built by the monk Sinwol in 1522, the seventeenth year of King Jungjong of Joseon. Originally, in the reign of King Gwangjong of Goryeo (r. 949-975), the eminent monk Beopin had built Bodeokam Hermitage at Buheo-dong on Samgaksan Mountain, and this lineage continued down through the centuries; Sinwol then moved it to its present site, rebuilt it on a much larger scale, and named it Hwagyesa. Later, after the building fell into disrepair through a great fire in 1618, the tenth year of King Gwanghaegun, and through the passage of long years, it was rebuilt in 1866, the third year of Emperor Gojong, with donations from Heungseon Daewongun. In 1933 it was also the place where nine scholars of Korean language and literature, including Yi Hui-seung and Choe Hyeon-bae, lodged and worked under the auspices of the Korean Language Society to draft the Unified Hangeul Orthography. The Daeungjeon Hall of Hwagyesa Temple, which enshrines Sakyamuni Buddha flanked by the bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta, was newly built in 1870, the seventh year of Emperor Gojong. It measures three bays across the front and three bays in depth, and has a paljak roof, a hipped-and-gabled roof whose side takes the shape of the character 八. It is built in the dapo style, with bracket sets that support the eaves and also serve a decorative purpose placed both above the columns and between them. The decoration of the interior ceiling and of the other structural members of the Daeungjeon Hall of Hwagyesa Temple all display the style of the late Joseon period, making it a wooden building characteristic of that time.

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Where it is

Region

Gangbuk-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산