SEOUL, South Korea — Slices of New York-style pizza are served under the cozy, antique beams of a traditional Korean-style cottage in central Seoul, thanks to Park Chan-ki.
The friendly, youthful-looking 37-year-old has been serving pizza to customers on two tiny tables in his grandmother’s heirloom for a year and a half.
Yet the tiny outlet, just a few minutes’ walk from the government offices, embassies and office blocks of Seoul’s central business district, won’t be open much longer.
Mr. Park’s business sits in the last cluster of hanok, or traditional homes, and golmok, the narrow, winding lanes, in Gwanghwamun, Seoul’s historic center. Save for the medieval palace at its heart, Gwanghwamun is dominated by towering modern high-rises. Little remains of the premodern cityscape.
Mr. Park’s area is subject to jaekaebal, the Korean word for redevelopment or compulsory purchase. Residents expect the bulldozers to be unleashed on the district in 2026 or soon thereafter.
“To be honest, I am kind of sad. It’s part of our family legacy,” Mr. Park said. “But my dad is old, and when my grandma gave this place to him, she said, ‘Just sell it.’ He deserves the reimbursement.”
Stories like that are emblematic of South Koreans’ conflicted attitude toward hanok.
Within living memory, these wooden-framed, single-story cottages, hunkered under tiled or thatched roofs, were defining features of the country’s landscapes and urban spaces. Today, the original hanok are disappearing at an alarming rate as part of South Korea’s fast-paced, relentless drive for economic development.
Few South Korean households invest their fortunes in speculative capital markets and prefer the solidity of real estate. As such, cashing in on one’s investment is built into the jaekaebal phenomenon.
Construction companies can anticipate major profits from the cookie-cutter, multistory edifices replacing Seoul’s scenic but low-profit clusters of antique buildings.
In this nation of 51 million, according to data collated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, just 575 hanok remain. The number has been falling annually since surveys began in 2011.
“Before our generation, people educated themselves in ‘We have to develop’ and thought of hanok as old days, hard times,” Mr. Park said. “But the younger generation miss them. They have been to European countries and seen how they preserved their heritage and envy it.”
These contrasting attitudes are breeding unusual dynamics.
Seoul is obliterating old hanok and golmok to reflect the tastes of those who grew up in them. Among the generation that did not, interest is rising in what might be called “neo-hanok” — repurposing the dwindling number of sites for use as restaurants, cafes, bars and weekend homes.
Dragging yesterday into tomorrow
A specialized campus of Jeonbuk National University, set in the slow-paced countryside of the rural southwest, serves that interest.
Established in 2011 under the auspices of the Land, Infrastructure and Transportation Ministry, the school offers courses in the theory, design and construction of traditional Korean architecture to students, including hobbyists, artisans and government officials.
This year, it initiated its first four-year undergraduate course. The last government-certified master artisan of hanok is a member of the faculty.
It is not meant as an exercise in historical reproduction, officials say.
“We are shifting from traditional apprenticeships to a modernized training system,” professor Nam Hae-kyung, who heads the college’s Hanok Research and Education Center, told a group of visiting journalists.
Mr. Nam said master builders in the past did not create mock-ups or even draw designs but constructed directly from the images in their heads.
Jeonbuk’s blend of old aesthetics with new materials was visible on what Mr. Nam calls a “healing campus.”
Equipment ranges from traditional woodworking tools to buzzsaws and 3D printers. Architectural models of upcoming projects fill one workshop and finished joinery another. An on-site museum displays antique architectural details — roof beams, tiles, joints — for students’ inspiration.
Outdoors, hard-hatted engineers were constructing a full-scale roof to be fitted onto an off-site project. Visiting architects watched artisans apply a traditional plaster mix to the structure.
The college has created hanok hotels, schools and government buildings. Many projects are additions to modern buildings — tiles, beams, paper windows — rather than full-scale, stand-alone dwellings.
The college donates student-built projects such as pavilions to schools, offers online courses and has even pioneered Lego hanok.
Mr. Nam said overseas projects have more space for creative freedom. Projects include a pavilion on the roof of a Korea-themed mall in Manila and a hanok village in Ellijay, Georgia.
“We have to modify hanok architectural methods for other countries, where there are different climates and different personalities,” he said. “But we have to keep our traditional architectural identity.”
Old-fashioned is a new trend
One of the 11 students in the college’s first undergraduate classes is 31-year-old Jin Bin. “People my age say, ‘You are doing something old-fashioned’ — and that’s new,” he said.
After graduating, he expects to specialize in restoring antique buildings of small and midsized businesses.
Architects also are finding interest in the crafts of their forebears.
“I majored in modern architecture, but am intrigued by Korean traditional architecture, and that is why I am here today,” said Um Ki-sung, an architect visiting the campus with a group of colleagues. “I am applying elements of hanok architecture to modern design.”
Mr. Um, who said he feels compelled to pass along traditional aesthetics, acknowledged that less than 10% of his clients request hanok design elements.
Lee Tae-woo, a bearded, 60-something self-employed craftsman who looks like the epitome of the old-school Korean gentleman, is realistic about the challenges involved in preserving the old while making it new.
He restores old buildings as an independent contractor. He said the tile-roofed, wooden-structured and clay-floored homes are challenging to live in and maintain.
“Hanok is not exactly the most convenient form of architecture,” he said. “We are trying to alleviate the inconveniences.”
Mr. Lee no longer lives in a hanok. Nor does Mr. Jin, the student, or Mr. Um, the architect.
Seoul’s biggest cluster of hanok squats in front of banks of tourist cameras in Bukchon, a district earmarked for preservation. Even there, in the district’s center Gahoe-dong, most antique hanok have been destroyed and replaced over the past two decades with modern hanok. Many are used as weekend homes by the well-to-do.
Nearby, the lively district of Ikseon-dong maintains several golmok lined with hanok. All have shifted from residential to commercial uses such as cafes, bars, restaurants and boutiques.
Even so, the renewed public interest in hanok suggests that the danger of its disappearance forever appears to have passed.
“To the old generation, hanok was not special, but to the young generation, it is something special and unique,” Mr. Jin said. “Young people have a unique taste and love the aesthetics of hanok. It won’t end with our generation.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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