Yi Yeong-chun House

This house stands on a hill east of the main building of the former Gaejeong Hospital. Built around 1920 as a private villa for the Japanese landowner Kumamoto, it follows a European style on the exterior, while its floor plan is based on a Japanese-style double-corridor layout, showing an eclectic design that combines a Western-style reception room with a Korean ondol (underfloor-heated) room. After Dr Yi Yeong-chun came to use the house, the Japanese-style tatami room was converted into an ondol room, but the overall structure of the dwelling, including its exterior, has otherwise been kept unchanged. Inside, the foundations and fireplace are built of random-coursed cobblestones, and the lower part of the exterior wall is a log-cabin structure (gwitteuljip) of halved logs notched together, while the upper part is finished in sprayed plaster stucco, its colour and texture harmonising well with the timber. The roof, following the irregular plan of projections and recesses, combines gable and hip forms and is finished with flat stone slabs. The floors are finely laid with teak parquet, and the chandeliers and furniture were imported from abroad; such high-quality materials were used that the construction cost is said to have rivalled that of the Governor-General's official residence. Centred on the double corridor, a large tatami room lies to the south and, to the north, an ondol room now used as a dining room; a small hall at the end of the corridor connects to the kitchen, a utility room, and a bathroom. The north-facing windows are triple-glazed, combining a glass-paned lattice window, a sliding screen door, and a geometric lattice window, and the kitchen has been converted, with a sink installed on its north side, into a stand-up kitchen. This building shows the introduction and character of a new residential culture in the modern era, and its plan and exterior display outstanding architectural composition. Such a combination of Western, Japanese, and Korean traditional styles is found nowhere else in residential architecture within the province, and is a rare case even elsewhere in Korea. The building also has historical value as evidence of land expropriation under Japanese colonial rule, and holds further significance given the historical importance of the medical work later carried out in the region by its post-liberation owner, Dr Yi Yeong-chun.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Gunsan, Jeonbuk

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산