Irony about pleasure

Here’s an irony about hanok, Korean traditional house. Some Hanok may ask for timely renovation in 70-80 years, while others are just not so ready, with the outside timber firmly standing upon concave cubic rock bases.

Hanok of yesterday: The modern rectangular site, since developed, were divided into multiple lots, each for an urban style hanok. One of our mission: retrieve some old-time elegant hanoks from deep memory. Warm and cosy? Agreed, but for this we have to summon our carpenter-builders.

We start from a fun anecdote: the hanok carpenter-builders are given the client’s simple order such as “frontal 8-kan, front to rear 2-kan, paljak roof” and the work is done. Actually they had drawings, but they look different from Western ones. Even in Gyeongbok-gung, the arrangement of the big main gate, Gwanghwamun, palace and galleries are said to be dynamic with axis tilting in slightly twisted ways. Mind you, in ordinary hanoks, column-to-column lengths are supposed to be unvaryingly lined up.

And what are hanok’s materials? Simple and elegant enough: timber, beautiful Korean paper, Korean roof tiles, rafters, beams and rock base etc. But there are some troubles as well..

For one thing, take the roof: lumps of earth are shoveled onto the roof for insulation purposes, by which the earth renders the rafters rotten. This insulation is supposed to achieve insulation from cold air outside. This is typically Korean. In other countries the earth is not normally used thataway. However in South Korea, the carpenter-builder still applies this method all the time building or renovating for ordinary uses.

So, what about the spoken history of building hanok? 

Kim Gil-seong, a hanok carpenter-and-builder confided in the book Hanok Returns that before the the Korean War, Yongdu-dong hanoks manifested mass production. The young Kim was there at the time, but all he could learn from this was the business of these hanok consisted basically real estate house modules. After meandering here and there where Hanoks are, KIm thinks hanok construction and maintenance costs are entirely too way up high. He had his own revised version of hanok. He prefers just han-style, not han-house. It would look better and cost less at the same time. Still, it cannot be denied that nowadays our carpenter-builders have working manuals of each building brick in their brains. Wanna talk a bit more about carpenter-buildiers? The book Hanok Returns provides us that opportunity.

Far into a modern South Korea, the architect and the carpenter-builder often collaborate. Back in time there were others: hanok-specializng firms which double as both designer and constructor. Into the 2010s, Arumjigi, a foundation with the aim of tending and archiving all kinds of Hanok works in South Korea, creates a robust organization of multiple exhibitions and other events. Park Seok-kyu proved his worth when he worked and completed Arumjigi company building and Arumjigi staff described his work for them in their book about building hanok. Park had built for temples and rites before he worked for Arumjigi and Hwang Doojin, the author of Hanok Returns.

The initiatives Openhouse for Bukchon (casing Anguk-dong and hanok streets beside it) and for Seochon (quiet streets just outside Gyeongbok-gung) host cooking classes, workshops, tours and pansori performances. The name takes after “Openhouse New York” and the motto is something like “contingencies turn into neighbourhood” local festivals. Hanoks in Bukchon disappeared because the zone’s height regulation was eased in 1991 and their number fell from 1518 to 947.

The book Hanok Returns is a valuable account of an architect bringing hanoks back to life in a better state. That architect, Hwang Doojin, began the enterprise by adding to and re-making some of those urban style hanboks to fit the temporary needs. Hwang says that in modern times, we have largely deserted and destroyed our traditional dwelling. He knew the fact firsthand; he had seen the deconstruction of hanok preservation zones in his college days.

He says by humbling accepting that piece of history, we can harness the futuristic improvement and re-development of hanbok. Also he says he wants to respect give room for hanok carpenter-builders and why? Because they represent the ceaseless history of re-making and renovation. Of Hanok.

But collaboration do not come easy. Firm-wise and carpentry-wise, all of the parties’ wisdom and attitudes differ from one another. To each his own! But Hwang’s hanok clients entrusted the architect’s personally recommended carpenter-builder for their constructions. Doing it was like creating your own little world to live in. And this, for the first time. One completed work decorated the corner which held a little flower bed. The artchitect came to cherish this ‘outdoor’ garden. Hwang has several interesting insights and mishaps while solving the problems of building these renovated hanoks: the roof sometimes couldn’t avoid invading the neighbourhood hanok. The typical hanok gave the impression of being perfected by installing windows and doors, also its module and scale may come to be hard to learn from a single look.

In a separate book “Moksu”(translatable as carpenter), the carpenter-builder Shin Eung-su shares his thoughts with us. Shin says 150 years ago large-size timber were transported for building of royal palaces in Seoul from all over the Korean peninsula, and a majority of them were dried pine trees. Also covered in the book was the status of Dopyeonsu. He is the most knowledgeable and most responsible for a certain project, and he makes records on the whole process and works as the head of a lot of carpenter-and-builders in royal buildings. Also, the carpenter-builder manufactures big gates by themselves. And here’s what Shin Eung-su firmly says about the problematic earth on the roof: its load has to be lightened as much as possible in order to prevent corrosion of the roof and of other materials. 

This way or that way I hope you can get a good hanok and derive delicious comfort and pleasure from it!