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Royal Tombs of Joseon Kingdom

June 24th, 2009
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English Chosun Daily
06-24-2009 18:14

 

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Hyeolleung of King Munjong, the 5th ruler, Guri, Gyeonggi Province

Joseon Royal Tombs Move to World Heritage

By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter

The royal tombs of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) are drawing public attention as they are expected to be designated as a UNESCO World Heritage at the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee now in session in Seville, Spain through June 30.

 

The final review is due for the June 26 to 27 session, and if approved the tombs will become South Korea’s ninth UNESCO-designated treasure.090624_p25_royal2

South Korea will have almost all its key remains of the Joseon Kingdom listed as World Heritages when the royal tombs make it past the final procedure, following Jongmyo Shrine (1995) and Changdeok Palace (1997).

The Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) applied for the registration of the Joseon royal tombs as a UNESCO World Heritage in 2008.

 

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has recommended including the 40 tombs among the total of 42 - except Jereung and Hureung in North Korea - on the list.

 

ICOMOS is known to have highly regarded the site’s unique architectural and landscape forms reflecting Confucian and geomantic traditions, as well as the related funereal rituals that have been handed down from those times to the present day as a form of intangible cultural heritage.

 

Value of Royal Tombs as World Heritage

Placed around Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces, the Joseon royal tombs had been meticulously preserved by court officials during the kingdom’s reign of 519 years.

The 42 royal tombs house 27 generations of the kingdom’s kings, queens, and posthumously designated rulers.

“The first and foremost value of the royal tombs is their good preservation for more than five centuries. Such preservation from a single kingdom is a rare case elsewhere in the world,” Chung Jae-hoon, professor of the Korean National University of Cultural Heritage, said.

He also said the tombs have unique patterns that distinguish them from neighboring nations, such as China and Japan. “Many Asian cultures were influenced by Chinese culture but the Joseon royal tombs have distinct characteristics in styles and structure, which are not found in China or Japan, although the scales of the tombs are smaller than the grandiose sites in China,” said Chung.

The professor said that the burial methods were rather influenced by the Silla (57 B.C. - A.D.935) and Goryeo kingdoms (918-1392).

New burial methods were instituted during the Three Kingdoms period, as Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla each developed their respective cultures.

 

In the advent of the Unified Silla period in the early seventh century, burial mounds were developed with the placement of stone monuments and statues nearby - different from China where stone sculptures were mostly installed inside the burial mounds, Chung said.090624_p25_royal4

 

He explained that at the end of the Unified Silla period (10th century), the principles of geomancy (feng shui) were applied to house tombs in mountainous areas with direct sunlight, rich soil and proper drainage.

“The royal tombs of Korea adopted their basic form during the Unified Silla period, which was also used by the Goryeo Kingdom, while the Joseon Kingdom gradually developed its own style and type of royal tombs,” he said. The professor also added that the tombs show changes in the sculpture patterns and archeological characteristics during the Joseon era.

Chung pointed out that the tomb sites also boast of unique landscapes surrounded by an endless series of mountain ridges for layered protection, security and tranquility.

“In order for the burial mound to enjoy the natural scenery, an ideal site would have an auspicious mountain at its back, with adjacent ridges and a scenic view of the surrounding landscape,” he said.

The burial mound was housed higher than the T-shaped shrine to show reverence and to distinguish between the sacred and the mundane. This was also designed to help the burial mound look out at the surrounding scenery and improve its access to direct sunlight and adequate drainage.

Chung said that the pathway to a tomb often twists and turns so that visitors cannot directly look at the tomb site to accentuate the solemn nature of sacred ground.

“The sites built under the guiding philosophy of Confucianism and inspired by geomancy boast a unique construction method and landscape architecture,” said Chung.

Also, the professor said that there are affluent records and archives which offer accurate references to royal burial rituals such as “Gukjo-oryeui,” a manual for national courtesy and ceremonies, “Uigwe,” a collection of royal protocols and “Neungji,” the records of the tombs. These archives show various paintings and records when royal tombs were created, he said.

Structure and Characteristics

The royal tomb sites, spanning an area of some 5,215 hectares (12,880 acres), are placed within a 40-kilometer radius of the former city boundaries of Seoul.

The sites have been regarded as highly sacred ground. Accordingly, they have been preserved intact over the centuries, while today serving as revered green-spaces.

According to the Confucian influences, the structure of a royal tomb consists of four sections each with a separate function, various monuments and characteristics.

An entrance section is for access, and features a red-spike decorated outer gate, ritual shrine, pond area and strip of cleared ground that serves as a firebreak and bridge.

A ritual section served as an area for the spirits of the deceased to meet with the people presiding over ancestral rites. The ritual section has an inner red spiked gate, a path, an area for the preparation of ritual food and T-shaped shrine.

In a transitional area, there is a stone pit for burning the memorial address, a platform for burning sacrificial money, pavilion to install tomb monuments, a stone altar in honor of the mountain god and a pathway to the tomb.

The burial section is sacred ground where the deceased was laid to rest. Only authorized personnel were allowed to enter for specific duties. It includes a burial mound, tiger and ram stone statues, stone platform where the spirit of the deceased could rest, stone pillars, a stone lantern, stone statues of civil and military officials, stone horses and a low wall.

The burial mound is surrounded on three sides by a low wall, around which pine trees are planted to create a kind of enclosed protection for the tomb site. The most essential aspect of a royal tomb is the burial mound, which features a rounded form and is ringed at the base with 12 flat stones, to symbolize the 12 directions, or branches of the earth.

A tomb’s T-shaped shrine is designed and built so that the burial mound cannot be seen from the outer gate. This careful placement of the T-shaped shrine seeks to maintain a hierarchical order between the mundane world and the sacred realm, along with a protected enclosure for the deceased’s sanctity and tranquility.

Effects of World Heritage

After being listed as a World Heritage, the tombs are expected to serve as good tourism sources.

The registration doesn’t change the ownership and control over the assets but they can receive technical and financial aid from the World Heritage Fund.

The royal tombs will be subject to protection and oversight by the international community.

 

Korea’s UNESCO Heritages090624_p25_royal5

 

 

Currently, South Korea is home to eight local sites registered by UNESCO _ Jongmyo, Joseon’s Royal Ancestral Shrine, and the Joseon-era Changdeok Palace in Seoul. Other sites include: Seokguram-Bulguksa and Gyeongju Historic Areas in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province; Tripitaka Koreana at Haeinsa Temple in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province;Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province; Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites; and the volcanic Jeju Island and its lava tubes. The royal tombs of the Joseon Kingdom will add to the list.

As of July, 2008, a total of 878 cultural and natural sites from 141 countries are registered. Italy has the most with 43 while China has 33.

In order to qualify as a World Heritage, a cultural site must possess all of the following (condensed) conditions:
1. Represent a masterpiece of human creative genius
2. Exhibit an important interchange of human values
3. Bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or civilization
4. Be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape
5. Be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use or sea-use
6. Be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions.

For the next World Heritage site, the cultural authorities are also pushing to register Gyeongju’s Yangdong Village and Andong’s Hahoe Village, Korea’s representative folk villages whose homes have stood where they are for centuries as UNESCO World Heritage Sites by 2010.

“As the villages retain the old vestiges of Joseon’s yangban, or literate noble class, we’ve applied for designation from the World Heritage,” Kim Hong-dong, an official of the CHA, said.

ICOMOS will conduct an on-the-spot inspection of the villages in September.

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr

 

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(66) APARTMENT RENTALS(I)

June 23rd, 2009
5 comments

Korea Times
06-23-2009 17:56

Uniqueness(5X6.7in)66_¼öÁ¤º»

 

 

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From South Korea, Innovation in Menswear

June 22nd, 2009
3 comments

NYT
From South Korea, Innovation in Menswear
By REBECCA VOIGHT

Published: June 21, 2009

South Korea is shaping up as the next hotbed of innovative menswear, with three of its most prominent designers creating tailoring with a twist for an international audience just as Seoul itself is becoming something of a fashion center.

But unlike the Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, who established their international reputations in the 1980s with a radical departure from traditional silhouettes, the Korean designers Juun J., Songzio and Wooyoungmi are offering traditional shapes in new proportions and juxtapositions. All three will be showing their spring 2010 collections in Paris later this week.

Juun J., a serious-looking Asian man with a trench coat obsession, is a master at intricate cutting, often fusing elements from several pieces into one overlapping silhouette.

The style can be seen in this spring’s best sellers: A riding jacket with a vest front in nylon and leather and a double jacket. It can be worn layered, or with the second jacket tied around the hips like an overshirt.

And Mr. Juun’s plaid shirts for fall look almost like capes, as do his beloved trench coats.

“It takes more time for us to set up the show in Paris, but the results have been worth it,” said the 42-year-old designer, who first showed in Paris two years ago. “I only wish we had come to Europe sooner, because the current economy is making everything take longer.”

The label, which has an annual sales volume of €920,000, or nearly $1.3 million, is found at Seven in New York, Bantone in Milan and Kabuki and the new Hotel Particulier in Paris.

Songzio’s fall collection featured tailoring with complex seaming inspired by Korean samurai battle dress mixed with billowy, hooded shapes.

The 40-year-old designer divides his time between Seoul and Paris, where his wife and son live. He has had his own brand for 15 years and showed in Paris for several years, but he still didn’t think he was ready to sell internationally until Harvey Nichols in Hong Kong persuaded him recently to deliver a small order.

For his spring 2010 collection Songzio is inspired by the bubble eyes of koi fish in a natural style, with soft shoulders, raglan sleeves and large pants.

Wooyoungmi said she got her ideas from architecture — like the Blur building designed by Diller and Scofidio for the Swiss National Expo in 2002, which inspired her spring 2009 collection’s “mix of tradition and delicacy.”

The 49-year-old was the first Korean men’s designer to show in Paris, in 2002, and she now has a store in the city’s trendy Marais neighborhood. Hers also is the largest of the Korean brands showing in Paris, with an annual sales volume of €17.5 million. This year she is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her Solid Homme by Wooyoungmi brand and will open three spots in Japan in August, which, she said, will make her the first Korean men’s designer to expand into that market.

The Koreans’ headline status also has a lot to do with changes in their home markets.

“Korean menswear started to take off seven or eight years ago,” Mr. Juun said. “I think Korean men are becoming very Japanese. They want to look good at work, and they’re interested in fashion.”

Korean men do look good, thanks in part to the country’s two-year compulsory military service and its emphasis on bodybuilding. Add to that the country’s burgeoning entertainment industry and the fact that Seoul has become trendy.

The style uptake can be seen on the blog Your Boyhood (yourboyhood. blogspot.com), where Hang Sukwoo, a fashion observer, posts snapshots of the city’s fashion crowd. The majority are young men in a mix of trendy European brands as well as young Korean and Japanese labels. And last year the electronics giant Samsung opened the Seoul branch of 10 Corso Como, a four-story supersized version of the Milan icon, in Chungdam Dong, the city’s fashion hub.

For John Storey, a consultant with the Japanese brand Ato, and Christophe Lemaire, whose collection is produced in Japan, South Korea is a convenient and growing source of business.

“Seoul is only an hour and a half flight from Tokyo. And over the last two years, Korean multibrand shops have become our biggest customers. Like the Japanese, the Koreans started out buying only big brands, and now they’re also interested in more avant-garde labels.”

And some young Koreans are starting their own brands, like Park Do Gun, a co-founder and designer of the label Attic from S.T.A.D. The brand showed its first men’s collection, inspired by old novels, at Korean fashion week last March.

The D. GNAK collection designed by Don Jun Kang, 31, is inspired by Mafiosi films like “Carlito’s Way” and “Scarface.” Mr. Kang, who studied fashion at Parsons School of Design in New York, is opening two stores in Seoul this summer, introducing a Web site and planning to show at foreign trade fairs.

And Han Sang Hyuk, 38, creative director of MVIO, a moderately priced collection produced by Samsung, has based his fall collection on the natty tailoring that he imagines would have been worn by Sherlock Holmes.

“Samsung asked me to reshape MVIO’s identity. So the fall collection is about looking for evidence and trying to solve a mystery,” Mr. Han said. “It’s a bit like young Korean men who are finding their fashion clues on the Internet.”

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