Chilseonggak Pavilion of Baegyangsa Temple

Nothing is clearly known about the founding of Baegyangsa Temple, but according to the Hanguk Sachal Jeonseo (Complete Compendium of Korean Temples), compiled in the 1960s, the temple was founded in 932 by the monk Baegyang, was destroyed by fire during the Japanese invasions of 1592–1598, was rebuilt in 1678 by Seon master Yeonjeong, and was rebuilt again in 1753 by Seon master Seorin. The temple is said to have continued through the late Joseon period, but its fortunes weakened and it fell into disrepair towards the end of the Korean Empire and during the Japanese colonial period. According to the inscription on the "Stele of Great Merit of the Bhikkhuni Bohyeon, Patron of the Reconstruction of This Temple," Baegyangsa was rebuilt in 1922 by the nun Bohyeon, with Chilseonggak built in 1927 and Myeongbujeon Hall and Baegyang Seonwon, among other buildings, built in 1932. Other sources, including Ulsan's first local gazetteer, the Hakseongji (1749), and the collected writings of literary figures from Ulsan in the early 1600s, mention Baegyangsa, making it clear that the temple had existed since before the seventeenth century. A newspaper report from 1933 records that Bohyeon had by then rebuilt about nine buildings, and photographs taken in the early 1930s show Daeungjeon Hall and Chilseonggak standing side by side. Furthermore, the "Preface to the Roster of the Chilseong Society of Baegyangsa Seonwon," a plaque hung inside Chilseonggak, lists those who made donations towards its construction and records its date of writing as 1930, showing that Chilseonggak was built before that year. Chilseonggak is a gabled-roof building of three bays across the front and one bay to the side, built on a three-purlin frame. Its daegong (king-post) is a plain rectangular post with no special carving, distinctive for being made thin in the form of a board; the beams and rafters, though heavily bowed, were used with only their outer bark peeled off and no further shaping, giving the building a rich natural quality. The bracket sets are double ikgong brackets, with both the first and second tiers carved as upward-curving angseo forms decorated with lotus-flower carving. The interior dancheong (decorative colour painting) uses modern pigments but is confirmed to carry on the lineage of late-Joseon dancheong design. Although Chilseonggak of Baegyangsa Temple was built in the 1920s and has undergone some alteration to its platform, column bases and flooring over the modern and contemporary periods, it retains its original function intact. As a representative example of the transitional architecture that sought to carry the late-Joseon style of traditional Korean building into the modern era, it holds high academic value.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Jung-gu, Ulsan

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료