Tradition has been created over time, not set in stone. Similarly, the traditional Korean-style house, Hanok cannot be defined by its fixed form or the established style, meaning that it remains adaptive to the change of times in different ways. Ther...
Tradition has been created over time, not set in stone. Similarly, the traditional Korean-style house, Hanok cannot be defined by its fixed form or the established style, meaning that it remains adaptive to the change of times in different ways. Therefore, it is necessary for the urban Hanok’s sustainability to acknowledge the residents’ needs for its adjustments and reset the direction of the adaptation process depending on the needs. Meanwhile, Hanok in Seoul is one of the most traditional housing types across the country, which has been sustained over the past century with keeping the identity under the rapid urbanization and various cultural changes.
Against this backdrop, the study shows historical consideration of the urban transformation process of Hanok in areas of Seochon, Bukchon, Donam, Cheongnyangni, known as the representative Hanok districts in Seoul. At the same time, the study covers stereological analysis on alterations of the urban Hanok, on the basis of actually measured drawings describing the residential behavior, which are extracted from existing research data. Put it another way, the research is not for ‘the history of dwelling style’ of morphological characteristics such as form, space and structure, but for ‘ the cultural history of dwelling’, which focus on analyzing the residents’ demands for urban housing over time. When it comes to temporal aspects, it is not about ‘Archeological study’ that examines the records of each layer accumulated in the urban Hanok, but it is rather about ‘the Genealogical relation’ between urban Hanok districts and their transformation process in terms of changes or effects. From this point of view, firstly, the study identifies ‘developments in the urban hanok’, which occur in the course of adjustments to lifestyle changes like the introduction of living room, the western-style furnishing and the idea of proper sanitation. Adding to this, the developments happen during a period of adjustments to the technological progress such as a heating system, a water-supply system, an insulation system, a waterproofing system and the invention of new materials like glass, aluminum and steel. And also, the adaptations to social changes like the introduction of housing laws, conditions of a location, bring about the developments in the traditional Hanok. Secondly, through the research on the adaptation process, this document shed light on great adaptability and an excellent adaptive system of the urban Hanok, by searching for ‘adaptation types’, so called the accumulation of dwelling culture, generally recognized in the urban Hanok.
To put it simply, ‘the adaptation types’ could be broadly categorized into three parts. The first type is ‘the adaptation type to lifestyle changes’ of making new spaces for new living items and using the space more conveniently. For instance, the urban Hanok adds more storage spaces, and plus it places the living room in the center of a house or along a corridor by internalizing moving lines. Secondly, the urban Hanok has ‘adapted to the technology development’, with widening the concept of housing space into a yard by new materials, new structural components and advanced construction methods. As a result, a kitchen has been changed to a dining place from a cooking place thanks to the introduction of a heating system, and attics gradually disappeared, and a hall between rooms was replaced with a living room, and thanks to steel scuppers and aluminum awnings, the yard has been internalized in the way of covering the whole spaces, and the larger space combining the inner space with the inner yard comes up, after commercial needs for the larger space eliminated wooden pillars and made steel beams. Lastly, the third type is ‘the adaption to the introduction of housing laws’. In other words, this is a spatial change of structure detaching the separate building from the main building, in addition, the separate building switched to a house for rent, in compliance with the Multi-family law. Moreover, under the Korean-style house Preservation, the urban Hanok was built from the traditional design, but added the basement or an extra storehouse. Put together, the urban Hanok has actively adjusted itself to the various social changes, at the same time, it maintains its uniqueness as well. More importantly, the adaptation types of the urban Hanok explain that Hanok is the thing of comprehensive culture which reflects the style of living culture, the universal development of technology, the economic change of surrounding areas, and the new housing laws. Furthermore, the urban Hanok has produced ‘the adaptability’ like the biological evolution so that it continues to survive in complex urban environments.
Now, the urban Hanok no longer maintain the pre-modern design of the Joseon Dynasty and keeps transforming itself, because it is prone to die out without the diversion to the residential urbanization. A number of Korean-style houses became outdated and ended up vanishing. And so, the urban Hanok has embraced its innovation whenever cultural environments such as lifestyle, technology, and social system require its change. In other words, the importance of the urban Hanok is placed on ‘ the ongoing adaptation process’, and ‘the style and the meaning of the transformed urban Hanok’. Therefore, the study on ‘ the adaptation process and types of the urban Hanok’ has significance for the established research focused on the present form and design of Hanok. This provides with a view of looking at the residents’ actual demands for the change in the urban Hanok. In conclusion, the value of the urban Hanok should be measured by what the residents need for the urban Hanok and what the urban Hanok does for them, rather than simply classifying it as ‘what is the traditional Hanok or the urban hanok’. In doing so, ‘a distinguishable value’ of accepting the differences can be pursued more than ‘an exclusive value’ of dividing the residential types. From this perspective, the value of a traditional residence will be found in the urban Hanok, and so the urban Hanok will continue to live with us in the future.