Bakgijong Old House, Boeun

The area where the Bak Gi-jong house stands is known as Biryongso, said to have been settled and built on by his fifth-generation ancestor some 300 years ago, and the family has since formed a clustered village across the Jangsin-ri area. The house stands at the entrance to Biryongso village in Jangsin-ri, enclosed by a wall, with a tall gate restored in the 1980s. Within the wall are the main hall, a thatched building, a storehouse, and a modern slab-roofed house, with a road and farmland spreading out in front. In the 1980s the house also had a detached men's quarters and a storehouse, but today only the main hall survives. The original main hall is a thatched building with a single eave and a hipped roof, four bays across the front and one-and-a-half bays deep, arranged from right to left as kitchen, room, central wooden-floored hall, and room. Particular care was taken over roof protection and heating: the front slope is gentle, while the shaded rear slope is steep, protecting the rear roof from damp. Apart from the lattice doors and windows, the pillars, beams and floor retain their original form well, so that the house preserves the style of folk houses in the Boeun region. The front lattice doors and windows were replaced in a modern style after flood damage in the 1980s, while those between the rear, the central hall and the rooms keep their original form. The wooden floor at the front and on the left side was added in that post-flood renovation; the floor of the central hall is an umulmaru, a 'well-frame' floor, made of logs about 40cm wide planed smooth with an adze. Inside, a gomul ceiling, a type of raised board ceiling, was installed, and apart from some alteration to the doorway, the pillars, lintels and beams retain their original form from when the house was first built. Although the lattice doors, windows and floor have been partly altered, the original doors and windows survive, and in particular the main structural members — pillars, beams and floor — remain. As the only thatched house of its kind still standing in the Boeun region, with its front and rear roof slopes deliberately different for drainage and to extend the thatch's life, it is valuable material for research into the region's traditional architecture.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Boeun, Chungbuk

Designation

Provincial Folklore Heritage · 시도민속문화유산