• Journal of architectural history
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.7-18
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• 2015

Gwanghwamun was dismantled and displaced to the east side of the palace, at that time, the Chosun Government General Building was constructed in the Gyeongbokgung palace. After the Korea war, it remained as a stonework as a result of the fire. In 1968, The Gwanghwamun came back in front of the palace. Then, why it was rebuilt in the 3rd Republic period? What was the reason for selecting concrete? Since the May 16 coup, the military regime had been utilized palace and surrounding urban space to show a visible practice of modernization. Attempting the combination of modern technology in the 1960s and traditional cultural property and reconstructing a city as a pretext called Cultural Heritage conservation was a typical mechanism of the 1960s. In this study, I start by assume that reconstructing Gwanghwamun(1968) was a part of project to change the surrounding urban space of Gwanghwamun than to preserve cultural assets. Two main contributions of the study are following. First, I collect availabe data on the reconstructing surrounding urban space of the Gwanghwamun and re-organize them in chronological order to make them as fragments of a map. Second, I analysis and identify the nature and phase of the Gwanghwamun reconstruction.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.112-131
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• 2021

The Gwanghwamun Gate of the Gyeongbokgung Palace was established in 1866 when Heungseon Daewongun rebuilt the Gyeongbokgung Palace. In Gwanghwamun, a large platform, woldae was established to reveal its hierarchy. The Gwanghwamun Woldae was equipped with stone railings on the left and right sides, fishing routes in the center, and stairs and slopes to the south. The Yongdu Stone was installed on the south side of the slope, which connected to the woldae, to express the path of the king in a formative manner. The Woldae King Road in Gwanghwamun was expanded in 1915 as the Joseon Promotion Conference was held at the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the woldae was destroyed around 1925. Since then, the figure has not been found since the time before the Gwanghwamun Gate. In the Donggureung royal tombs, there are many stones that are not placed in the royal tombs, including voussoir arch stones, Munsojeon Gugi-bi, as well as Nangan-Seokju, Dongja-seok, and Juk-seok, which are elements of the stone railings. These stone railings and Yongdu-seok are seen as stone objects of the Gwanghwamun Woldae, which can be found through the analysis of the style of the times and comparison with modern photographs.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.45-55
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• 2015

After the Korean war, two major attempts were made to reconstruct Gwanghwamun Gate as an important part of Korea's lost cultural heritage. In December 2006, the Korean government replaced the concrete gate with a wooden one, yet traces of the attempts made in the 1960s to transform Gwanghwamun Gate and the main road remain to this day. At the time, the Third Republic of Korea, sought to legitimize itself in the name of modernity, and went on to modernize the architecture and urban landscape of Seoul. The location and design selected for the rebuilt Gwanghwamun illustrated the symbolic relationship between historic heritage and urban development. The reconstruction of the gate began as part of the Third Republic's project to restore the Central Administration Building and culminated in the transformation of the main road in front of the gate. By reconstructing the traditional gate using concrete, the military government intended to convey the message that we could inherit our proud tradition using modern materials, and that we should actively adopt the new technologies of the modern era. This study begins with the premise that the Gwanghwamun reconstruction project of 1968 represents the application of new technological thinking to Korea's architectural style, and has two objectives. The first is to summarize the reconstruction process and method using the records and drawings from the 1968 project, which was then under the leadership of architect Kang Bong-jin. The second is to analyze the characteristics of the architectural style and structure of the reconstructed Gwanghwamun so as to reinterpret the relationship between Korean tradition and modern technology.

• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.491-504
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• 2021

Gwanghwamun Gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace was dismantled and relocated during the Japanese colonial period, destroyed during the Korean War, reconstructed with reinforced concrete in 1968, and finally erected at its present location in 2010. A pair of Haechi statues located in front of Gwanghwamun was dismantled and relocated several times, and the statues have yet to be returned precisely to their original positions. This study assesses the historical accuracy of their current placement under the Gwanghwamun Square Restructuring Project of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Cultural Heritage Administration based on archival photos from the early 1900s, and proposes a method to estimate the original positions of the Haechi through image analysis of contemporary photographs and recent digital camera photos. We estimated the original position of the Haechi before the Japanese colonial period by identifying the shooting location of the archival photo and reproducing contemporary photographs by calculating the angle and distance to the Haechi from the shooting location. The leftmost and rightmost Haechi were originally located about 9.6 m to the east and 7.4 m to the north and about 1.9 m to the west and 8.0 m to the north, respectively, of their current location indicators. As the first attempt to determine the original location of a building and its accessories using archival photos, this study launches a new scientific methodology for the restoration of cultural properties.