Dongsanjeong Pavilion, Haman

Dongsanjeong is a modern-period pavilion standing atop a cliff above Geomamcheon (Geomam Stream). It is said to have been founded by Yi Ho-seong, who served as Commissioner of the Right Naval Division of Gyeongsang Province and as Minister of War during the reign of King Sejo of Joseon, and later restored by his grandson Yi Hui-jo. Dongsanjeong stands in Geomam-ri, Gaya-eup, Haman-gun, an area of beautiful mountains and water. Behind it rises the thickly wooded Dongjisan, which shelters the pavilion, and in front flows the ever-clear Yeohangcheon (Yeohang Stream). Dongsanjeong occupies a scenic spot atop a cliff more than 20 metres high, facing the Yeohangcheon. Dongsanjeong was founded during the reign of King Jungjong, when scholar-officials, holding the disposition of cheosa, unemployed Confucian scholars who did not take office, built such pavilions to correct the customs of their hometown, devote themselves to moral instruction, and pursue scholarly study. Dongsanjeong measures four kan across the front and two kan in depth. In plan, the two central kan form a heated ondol room, flanked on either side by a broad plank floor (umulmaru) of 1 by 2 kan. This arrangement, with a heated room placed centrally and surrounded by floor areas, is also found in the pavilion architecture of western South Gyeongsang Province and of the Honam region. Four-panel folding doors, as wide as the bay itself, were hung on the front and sides of the ondol room. The tall lattice-patterned doors on the front of the ondol room have no low sill (meoreum), while the folding doors between the floor and the room have an octagonal bulbalgi, a decorative latticed and papered centre panel, in the modern style. The four panels of the folding door between the right-hand ondol room and the floor had all been lost and have recently been newly made. Above the four-panel folding doors on the front of the ondol room, a long horizontal transom window with a cross-lattice pattern was installed to admit light, with a small square ventilation opening at its centre. Transom windows of this same long, cross-latticed form are also set above the plank doors on both sides of the floor, though without ventilation openings there. Dongsanjeong is a hip-and-gable-roofed building with single eaves, finished with soro, small bearing blocks, atop the columns. On a platform finished in cement mortar stand round, dressed foundation stones bearing round columns that support a three-purlin roof frame. Both round and square columns are used: square columns surround the ondol room, while round columns are used elsewhere. At the four corners of the roof, the rafters are laid using the horse-hoof rafter technique. The small outer gate, built in the form of a four-pillar gate, is a simple structure with a single-eaved gable roof and a three-purlin frame; a short queen post set on the main beam supports the ridge purlin. Dongsanjeong was built to reflect the social climate of the mid-Joseon period, when scholar-officials of cheosa disposition built pavilions where they could retire to correct local custom, devote themselves to moral instruction, and pursue scholarship. Its structural technique is solid, and its design strongly reflects modern-period characteristics, so that it illustrates well the features and process of change in pavilion architecture of the modern era.

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Where it is

Region

Haman, Gyeongnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료