A palace is the most upscale building which represents construction of a certain period of time. Especially Gyeongbokgung is the main palace of Joseon Dynasty(year 1392~1910) which carries a much more historical meaning than any other palace. It refle...
A palace is the most upscale building which represents construction of a certain period of time. Especially Gyeongbokgung is the main palace of Joseon Dynasty(year 1392~1910) which carries a much more historical meaning than any other palace. It reflects history, culture, politics, economy, and ideology at that time. The study on Gyeongbokgung is only limited to history of architecture, records, and art with remains only 10% of original buildings and historical documents so far.
However, the remains of Gyeongbokgung in the ground gives important clues that can fill the gaps of these studies. Thus, this study aims to overcome limitation of study on Gyeongbokgung and to suggest new aspect of it by approaching the remains of Gyeongbokgung in archeological way.
The remains of Gyeongbokgung is the foundation of palace, which reflects the whole body of building. Thus I tried to apply archeological analysis to the remains of Gyeongbokgung, and found out various informations and feature.
I classified the format of all relics to 12 types by shape, construction method, materials, scales found at 10 excavation sites during year 1990~2006 in Gyeongbokgung.
They can be divided into basic parts of the building including Jeoksim(foundation of building under cornerstone), cornerstone, platform, and wall-based, inner-based facilities including Ondol(hot floor, chimney), and building-related facilities including draining facility, well, wall base, door, garden(flower bed), and Woldae(a kind of terrace).
In particular, I analyzed Jeoksim, the staple remain of Gyeongbokgung, to do chronicle and reviewed co-relation between foundation and building.
Jeoksim, which is being found in most of the remains of Gyeongbokgung, is the foundation that helps sustain weight of building and prevents the ground from sinking.
It is divided into round-shape(Ⅰ), rounded square-shape(Ⅱ), rectangular-shape(Ⅲ), square-shape(Ⅳ), and foundation of hole building(Ⅴ) by the shape. They can be divided again into 21 types by construction techniques and materials. Materials include Jangdaeseok(rectangular parallelepiped stone), riprap, tiles, sandysoil, quicklime, and various Jeoksims are built by mixing them to different ways.
These Jeoksims were built in Emperor Taejo year 4(year 1395) and burnt in Imjin war (Emperor Seonjo year 25, 1592), and rebuilt in Emperor Gojong (year 1865).
In the first period, 3 types of Jeoksim, Ⅰ-1, Ⅱ-1, and Ⅱ-2a were built, however, in the latter period, 21 types of Jeoksim including Ⅰ-1~Ⅴ-3 were built. This is the evidence that various construction types and materials were developed during 470 years from the first period until the latter.
Meanwhile palace building have different names by the class of owner and use such as Jeon, Dang, Hap, Gak, Jae, Heon, Nu, and Jeong after the name of the buildings. Certain type of Jeoksim were used more than 50% of building such as Jeon, Dang, Bang, and others building of the first Joseon. Square Jeoksim (Ⅳtype) was used on Jeon, rounded square Jeoksim (Ⅱ type) was used on Dang and Bang, round Jeoksim was used on other building of the first Joseon. By the type of building, different Jeoksims were used, and if owner of the building was in higher position, better and stronger materials were used on foundation, therefore, it was proved that there is a co-relation between building and 'Jeoksim', the foundation of building.
Through above research, features and meanings of the remains of Gyeongbokgung are as followed.
First, through engineering works on the whole surface, arrange and harden the land, and dig certain space, and then build the foundation of a building.
Second, remains of different period well remain in layers, we can see the changes in place construction technique through the first and latter Joseon by layers and analysis of excavated remains.
Third, by detailed analysis of building construction type, materials, and scale as well as type of remains of building, we can see that there are various types and construction techniques by each remain. If only the part of remains are discovered, we can analogize the part based on these.
Forth, various research on co-relation of foundation and building is possible since the remains of building and existing building co-exist.
I make it very emphatic that remains of building are the only keys to restore history of the Palace. I look forward to apply detailed analysis on buildings to other types of buildings and other period of time.