A Case of the Early American College Building Tradition in Korea

During the first twenty-six years of its existence from 1954 to 1980, Keimyung University established on its Daemyung Campus a unique community of Western period-style buildings which recalls an old liberal arts college in America. During the first fifteen years, Keimyung built basically in the neo-Georgian style in accordance with the visions of the first two presidents, both of American nationality. During the next eleven years when Keimyung considerably expanded its facilities, it built in the neo-Classical style. The architecture of the Daemyung Campus is not without dynamism as it shows some efforts to integrate the expressions of the historical and the modern, culminating in the Main Library. The Daemyung Campus thus presents an interesting case study of how Western period-style architecture was assimilated in a provincial Korean city with a sense of an on-going building tradition.