Book introduces hanok history
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By Kwon Ji-youn
The residence of former president Yun Po-sun (1960-62) boasts a vintage tile roof, antique rafters and high walls on the outside, with western designs and furniture on the inside. The hanok (traditional Korean house), built in 1870, sits on a picturesque street in Anguk-dong, Seoul, and here, the East and West coexist in harmony, though Yun himself spent much of his later life under a disturbing amount of government surveillance.
“Hanok, the Korean House,” by Park Na-ni, wife of the Duksung School Foundation president, and Robert J. Fouser, a professor at Seoul National University, gives readers a peek into Yun’s home, as well as a number of other hanok homes that exist today including the Jiwuheon (house of continuous learning), Simsimheon (house where the heart is found) and the Moto Hanok.
Foreigners, as they pass by the Bukchon Hanok Village, can’t help but wonder how the inside of a hanok looks, and how the furniture is arranged. They want to see more than just the hanok _ they want to see the homes that the owners have fashioned inside such time-honored wooden dwellings.
“Hanok, the Korean House” by Park Na-ni and Robert J. Fouser Courtesy of Tuttle Publishing
The authors, in “Hanok, the Korean House,” have examined a variety of hanoks ― not just the historical residences in which aristocrats lived ― many of which have been improved and renovated to meet changes in the country’s climate, as well as the residents’ practical needs.
“My aim in this book is to expand readers’ awareness of Korea,” Park writes in the preface. “My hope is that readers will appreciate and understand the Korean hanok as a piece of architectural history, as a way of preserving Korean culture and as a thing of beauty.”
Park hoped to convince readers that a hanok is not a display-only structural design ― it’s a living space most suitable to the Korean lifestyle. Fouser tells readers about the fall of hanok during the massive wave of hanok destruction in the early 1990s, and its recurrent rise, when renovations to hanok in Bukchon began in the earlier 2000s.
Each chapter describes the owners and their love for hanok, and details how the owners came to own and renovate such beautiful hanok homes.
“I wanted to fill the book with glimpses of hanoks that people can call home,” Park said. “I ask that readers focus more on the photographs in the book rather than the text, because the photographs truly embody the hanoks that I hope my readers will get to know.”
Photographs by Lee Jong-keun; directed by Park Na-ni; text by Robert J. Fouser. 163 pages.