Constitutional Court of Korea

_hyogeun_

"How to revive an old house"
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Our traditional house is a wooden structure using wood as the main structure. The horizontal member, the wooden column, and the vertical member, the wooden beam, are used as the basic framework to form the frame, and the roof is placed on top of it to finish. Since columns, beams, and roofs are tightly combined with each other, if one of them fails, it will collapse quickly and the shape cannot be recognized. Moreover, since wood is a material that rots away if management is neglected, it is virtually impossible to completely restore a traditional house that has collapsed and has lost its traces. Fortunately, the foundation, which is the part in direct contact with the ground, is often left almost intact as it does not use wood. The foundation is completed by digging the ground, adding gravel to make 'wetted', and placing the 'foundation stone' on it. The wetness and foundation stones that do not disappear relatively easily make it possible to infer the size and height of the remains and the identity of the people who lived there.
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The remains found while digging for the extension of the Constitutional Court's annex in Jae-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, were the 'Nungseong Wigung', a house built to 'Gu Min-hwa', the son-in-law, for Yeongjo's youngest daughter, Princess Hwa-gil. As ' and 'Changdeok Girls' High School' were built, the lower concrete structure of the annexed building of Changdeok Girls' High School remained. In other words, this site was a compressed land of 200 years of history, and this relic was a valuable resource that showed the accumulated history created by structures from different eras at a glance.
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We could choose to preserve it as it is by fencing, but this place was different. We estimated the shape and size of the original 'Nungseong Wigung' with wetness and foundation stone, and guessed the location of the missing foundation using the basic unit of hanok, the 'kan'. Here, beyond observing the remains in a flat manner, people can imagine the true appearance of the 'Nungseong Wigung' in three dimensions. Inside, you can see the 'kan' of a hanok by encircling a white band, and you can observe the remains found through the gaps made of the foundation stone. There is also a modern concrete structure in the center of the house, so traces of the accumulated time can also be found.
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It is up to us to decide how to preserve the excavated remains and show them to future generations. There are many ways to do it, and there is no right answer. However, the method of preservation shown here is thought to be the most appropriate way to remember and preserve our history lost through wooden structures. Unlike European stone buildings that have maintained their shape for a long time and almost all of them remain, our traditional houses are not like that.
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#A space that gives you a good _experience
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Next to the Constitutional Court at 15 Bukchon-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul