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Living & Surviving in Korea | |
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Housing in Korea
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Koreans have placed high importance on the housing site from antiquity as houses need to be cool in summer yet warm in winter, and able to adapt to the distinct changes in season. Koreans, therefore, prefer a house facing the south or southeast where the sun shines and cold wind can be warded off. The major materials of traditional style houses are earth and wood. The earth insulates the inside from outside heat or cold. Black-grooved tiles for the roof are made of earth, usually red clay. Also, the construction of the Korean house did not use nails but was assembled with wooden pegs. Simple traditional houses with a rectangular floor and a kitchen and a room on either side developed into an L-shaped and then a U-shaped or square shaped house with a courtyard. Traditionally, Korean houses can be distinguished into tile-roofed and straw-thatched houses. In the past, the commoners used to live in thatched houses with woven straw placed on the roof, while the 'yangban', the ruling class, lived in tile-roofed houses. Tiles with their graceful lines and beautiful patterns are the most important element in Korean architecture. Traditional tile-roofed Korean houses, usually surrounded by a stone wall, consist of a shaped main structure standing behind the front gate with a cowshed, a barn or the servants' quarters next to the gate. The main structure includes a main living room for women, a hall, a room facing the main living room and the men's quarters. A thatched house is also a rarity even in the rural areas ever since the house modernization project came into being in the '70's to the extent of its being preserved primarily in the Folk Village. 'Ondol', a house-heating system using flat, heated slabs of stone under the floor, is known to have been first used on the Korean Peninsula. It was during the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392) that 'ondol' came to be used throughout the Peninsula. The flat stones installed beneath the floor retain heat for a long time when heated by straw or logs in the kitchen fireplace. 'Ondol' is so much a part of the Korean's life that many people have fond memories of sitting around a brazier on the ondol floor and roasting sweet potatoes or chestnuts on it. Although the underfloor flat stones are rarely heated by logs or straw any longer, there are still many ondol rooms using gas or oil.
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Apartment blocks
Town house
Traditional house courtyard
Another apartment building |