Gangneung Choe Clan Dongwongun Head House

The house is arranged in a hollow-square (口-shaped) layout formed by the gate quarters, the main hall (anchae), the men's quarters (sarangchae) and the storehouse wing, giving it the dignity befitting the head house of a clan. It was built in 1918 and 1919 (the seventh and eighth years of the Taisho era) during the Japanese colonial period, and is classified as a modern traditional hanok. The main hall measures six bays across the front and two bays deep; on its side stands an inner wooden-floored hall, within which is an inner side room. The sliding partition doors between the rooms were removed so that each could be used as one large space for convenience, and the kitchen too was renovated in a modern style. A narrow wooden veranda runs along the front. The platform base is built of roughly dressed natural stones topped with long dressed stones, and the roof is a hipped-and-gabled Korean tile roof on a five-purlin frame with round purlins. The men's quarters comprise a central hall flanked by two rooms. In the room beside the hall is a shoe room connecting to the main hall, through which one passes to reach both the hall and the room. This reflects how, as the strict separation of men and women and Confucian convention weakened in the modern period, a direct route came to link the women's and men's quarters. The lower room of the men's quarters has, to its rear, a further small room reached through four sliding doors, which in turn connects to a kitchen serving the men's quarters, giving access between the main hall and the outside. The beams are of the janghyeo-guldori type with round purlins, the columns are tall, the retreat bay has a plank ceiling, and the upper and lower parts of the walls are finished with sill boards. The long dressed-stone platform projects 100 mm out from the foundation stone beneath it. Inside, a two-storey loft was built, lending the house further dignity. Adjoining the kitchen is a wood-floored pantry used for storing food and preparing meals. Facing it, across the courtyard, stands a separate annexe-style building housing a storeroom, the west room (the elder sister's room) and a kitchen. The gate quarters originally had a raised central gate flanked on one side by a wood store and stable and, on the other, by a drive-through passage and fodder-storage room, though these have now partly fallen into disrepair. Built on a spacious site, the house carries the dignity of a traditional modern-era hanok, but, as with all houses of its time, it shows a shortage of good timber, a feature seen here too. This reflects, with some regret, the economic hardship that Japanese colonial exploitation imposed on domestic housing. The siting of the house and the arrangement of its buildings, however, are beyond reproach.

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Where it is

Region

Gangneung, Gangwon

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료