Former Gyeonggi-do Provincial Government Building

From the Joseon period through the Japanese colonial period and up to the 1960s, the office handling Gyeonggi-do's administrative affairs was located in Seoul; the practice of keeping the province's administrative offices, bordering as it does the capital, close to the central government for supervision and control persisted for some time even after liberation. In 1963 it was decided to relocate the Gyeonggi-do provincial office to Suwon, and following design and construction the building was completed in June 1967. A nationwide boom in the construction of public office buildings arose around the same period, and this building came to serve as something of a model for it. The designers are recorded jointly as Kim Hui-chun and Na Sang-jin. Built at the foot of Paldalsan Mountain, it is laid out with a stable, horizontal emphasis that respects the various facilities of Hwaseong Fortress. The building displays the essence of the modernist design that dominated Korean architecture in the 1960s; the slanted treatment of the rooftop exterior walls and parapet can also be read as an application of Brutalism. The courtyard formed by the building's square layout serves both as a place of rest and, through the corridors and glass windows facing onto it, as a key element linking the building's interior spaces. Well-ventilated windows set into the exterior walls of the stairwells allow air to circulate between the enclosed courtyard and the outside. From the second floor upward, narrow verandas doubling as external corridors give access from each office to the outside, an element that contributes significantly to the building's stable, horizontal character. The detailing of the exterior walls in exposed concrete and terracotta is one of the expressions of modernity favoured by architects of the period.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Suwon, Gyeonggi

Designation

Registered Cultural Heritage · 국가등록문화유산