Simple houses with a rectangular floor plan divided into
a kitchen and one additional room, were common in mountainous areas as well
as some farming areas. They are reminiscent of the prehistoric pit houses of
Korea. The ondol system of heating by channeling smoke through under-the-floor
flues was used throughout Korean history and is still in use today. It was developed
from the hearths of the pit houses.
The rectangular floor of the earliest houses developed into an L-shaped plan
and then into a U-shaped or square plan with a courtyard at the center. Upper-class
houses consisted of a number of separate buildings. Generally speaking, one
building accommodated women and children, the others, the men of the family
and their guests, and another, servants. All these buildings were enclosed within
high walls. A family ancestral shrine was built behind the house. Ideally, a
lotus pond and sometimes a pavilion were positioned in front of the house outside
the wall.
Upper-class houses had a sturdy framework and many decorative elements lined
the canopies, although the use of the colorful dancheong patterns found on temples
and palaces was strictly prohibited. The roofs were elegantly curved and accentuated
with slightly uplifted eaves. Some had decorative round tiles at the edges of
the roof along the eaves.
Houses of the lower classes were usually made of logs and had little decorative
wood work. They usually had thatched roofs. No ordinary house, of either upper
or commoner type, could be larger than 99 kan, however. (Only the king's palace
could have 100 kan or more). A kan is a term referring to the
square space inside the four pillars that was used for calculating the size
of traditional structures.
It was toward the end of the last century, when Korea opened its doors to the
world, that Western architecture was first introduced, signaling an era of rapid
changes into diverse styles. |