Haegong Sin Ik-hui House

This house is where Haegong Sin Ik-hui (1894-1956), an independence activist who served as the first Speaker of the National Assembly after liberation, lived for about one year and nine months — from August 1954, when he stepped down as Speaker, until 5 May 1956, when he suddenly passed away while travelling to Jeonju to campaign in the Honam region as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. Consisting of an L-shaped main house (anchae) and a men's quarters (sarangchae), this house is an urban-style hanok built in the 1930s by house developers (jipjangsu) who imitated the houses of Joseon-period yangban families; it has double eaves and a hipped-and-gabled (paljak) roof. Although the eaves are doubled, they are kept short to allow adequate light; round purlins (guldori) are used; and the main beams have a cross-section disproportionately large for the building's scale, forming a five-purlin (oryangga) frame — features that clearly reveal the characteristics of urban hanok of this period. The exterior and interior walls and the windows and doors have been partly altered for the convenience of later occupants since Sin Ik-hui's residence, but the structure of the building retains its original form from the time of construction relatively well. The altered parts of the building are themselves valuable architectural-historical material for understanding the evolution of urban hanok. After liberation in 1945, Sin Ik-hui ended his long years of independence struggle in China and returned to Seoul, where he lived successively at the Hanmi Hotel, the Jo family house in Changsin-dong, Naksanjang in Jongno 6-ga, the Jang family house in Myo-dong, 106 Samcheong-dong (today the Prime Minister's official residence), and 164-2 Hyoja-dong. Of these, 164-2 Hyoja-dong is where he lived and was active during the period when his political life — summed up as a journey from the independence movement to the democratisation movement — reached its peak: after stepping down as Speaker of the National Assembly, he founded the Democratic Party and ran as its presidential candidate, opposing former President Rhee Syng-man and the Liberal Party government, which was then attempting to prolong its long-term rule and strengthen a dictatorial system through measures such as the 'rounding-off' constitutional amendment (sasaoip gaeheon). This makes the house an important site in Korea's modern history.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물