Jongchinbu: Gyeonggeundang and Okcheopdang
Rebuilt 1866 to 1867; returned to this site 2013
Two graceful wooden halls with grey tiled roofs stand on stone platforms at the edge of the museum courtyard, looking as if the modern building had been arranged around them. They are the surviving parts of Jongchinbu, the Joseon dynasty office that managed the affairs of the royal clan, kept the genealogies of the Yi family and looked after the portraits of the kings. Gyeonggeundang, the larger hall, was the main office; Okcheopdang, joined to it by a covered passage, was for the senior officials. Both were rebuilt in eighteen sixty six and sixty seven when the regent Daewongun restored Gyeongbokgung.
Look at the proportions. The halls are wide and low, with deep eaves supported on brackets, wooden floors raised above the ground and lattice doors that open the whole front to the courtyard in summer. The painting on the beams is restrained, as befits an administrative building rather than a palace throne hall. Walk round to the back to see the stone foundation and the chimney for the underfloor heating.
The buildings have travelled. In nineteen eighty one, when the site belonged to the Defense Security Command, the army moved the two halls to a nearby school to make room for a tennis court. When the museum was planned, the decision was made to bring them home, and in twenty thirteen they were dismantled and rebuilt exactly where they had stood, with the modern galleries designed to leave room for them. They are now a designated cultural heritage site of Seoul and a quiet counterpoint to the exhibitions inside.
Did You Know? The halls were moved away in nineteen eighty one so that the military could build a tennis court, and were brought back to the same spot when the museum was built thirty years later.
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