Korea Heritage Service designates 16th-century temple hall in Geumsan as Treasure
Daegwangjeon Hall of Sinansa Temple in Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province / Korea Heritage Service
The Korea Heritage Service has designated the Daegwangjeon Hall of Sinansa Temple in Geumsan County, South Chungcheong Province, as a Treasure, one of the country's state heritage designations just below National Treasure.
No written record establishes exactly when the hall, the temple's main worship building, was first built. But a ridge-beam inscription discovered during dismantling repairs in 2007 recorded a 1638 reconstruction and an 1840 renovation. Later, in 2023, tree-ring dating of key wooden members found several dated to 1583, scientifically confirming the hall was originally built in the 16th century.
The hall features a "dapo" bracket style — in which bracket sets supporting the roof's weight are placed both atop the columns and between them, rather than only atop the columns — combined with a gable roof, a design in which the roof slopes only at the front and back. The agency said placing bracket sets on the building's sides and corners despite its gable-roof design is a distinctive feature reflecting 16th-century construction techniques.
Other elements considered signs of an older architectural style include a slight swelling at the midpoint of some columns, corner columns built taller than the rest and a technique of rounding off beam edges where they meet narrower columns. The building's floor plan, with its interior support columns aligned with the side columns and its altar placed at the center, is also considered typical of an earlier period than most surviving temple halls of its kind, whose interior columns were often moved rearward in later construction.
The agency said the hall preserves original building materials and craftsmanship despite undergoing several rounds of repair, giving it high historical, academic and artistic value. It said it will continue working with local government to help preserve and manage the site.
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.