After opening a port, there has been a great influx of people with different nationalities in Korea. In earlier days, they used traditional houses of Korea intactly or did partial remodeling. However, as their length of stay in Korea became longer, th...
After opening a port, there has been a great influx of people with different nationalities in Korea. In earlier days, they used traditional houses of Korea intactly or did partial remodeling. However, as their length of stay in Korea became longer, they felt discomfort and inconvenience of traditional housings and started to construct houses in similar fashion as houses they lived in their homeland to satisfy their desire.
For buildings constructed by Europeans and Americans at the time, the legation, school, hospital, and religious architecture are the representative ones, and in addition, banquet halls, hotel, houses, and vacation home were constructed. These architectures being a very different type of architecture from our traditional architectures, materials and floor plan composition are still making a significant influence even in modern times.
However, there was a time when symbolism of modern architectural properties stirred painful memories of Korean modern history, the Japanese colonial era. Also, after liberation and as a result of drastic economic growth followed by Korean War, we were indifferent to preserving our modern architectures. As a result, it was led to the destruction, damage, and negligence of Japanese architecture as well as Western architecture.
Interest in culture increased recently as national standard of living became stabilized, and architectural·historical discussion on the relocation of Dongnimmun Gate and requidation of the Old National Museum of Korea(the Japanese Government-General of Korea) became social issues. Since then, interest in preservation of modern architecture increased as the registered cultural properties system was introduced in the Cultural Properties Protection Law.
Despite such social changes, there are architectures around us that are still left unattended and neglected. This house, called Dilkusha, is a house of Albert Taylor who was engaged in the gold mine development and international trade business in Korea during the Japanese Ruling Era. While he lived in Korea doing personal business and as a UPI correspondent, he reported the 'March First Independence Movement' of 1919 and 'Jeam-ri Massacre' of the same year through foreign press and let the entire world know about these brutality committed by the Japanese Empire. However, this house was presumed as the 'Daehanmaeilshinbo building' for long time after Taylor was deported by Japan in 1942. When his son, Bruce Taylor, visited Korea in 2006, achievements of Albert Taylor along with this house became widely known and 'Dilkusha' attracted public attention.
Even though Dilkusha has architectural and historical value and is well worth the architectural study of modernized Western housing, this building is still not receiving appropriate attention as renovation or repairing work. It is because this house is currently owned by nation and is being maintained by Korea Asset Management Corporation, but approximately 15 households who purchased the right of residence from the past residents are living in this house. It went through 3 sessions of registered cultural properties screening, but the registration was rejected because migration of residents was not resolved.
The purpose of this study is in screening out modified particulars through location surveying of the building that was yet to be conducted and by analyzing related information, and to speculate the original form at the time of construction. This study organized the memoir of building owner and interview on residents to identify the floor plan composition at the time of construction, space application, changes in this house, and the reason. This research is expected to help restoration and preservation of the research object in the future and in finding the application plan.