Hanok Village

On Wednesday, we took at trip to Eunpyeong Hanok Village. This is in Seoul, but Seoul has a lot of other "towns" within it, including what is called Eunpyeong New Town. After the Korean War, there was little in this area, and then it became a place of poorly built wooden housing where the very poor lived.

Then, as Seoul grew, and they were trying to eliminate buildings that were unsafe due to being fire hazards or unable to withstand earthquakes, Eunpyeong was selected for the next urban growth. Much of Eunpyeong New Town looks like a lot of other parts of Seoul with high-rise apartments. But in one section, they instead built a Hanok village.

Eunpyeong Hanok Village and a lantern and mountains

What's Hanok? The word Hanok comes from two Chinese characters, the first "Han" meaning Korea and the second "Ok" meaning house. I will show you some Hanok architecture. But this word, Hanok, didn't exist for a long time. The Korean way of building houses was the only way houses were built for many centuries. So Hanok houses were just houses. It wasn't until Westerners came and brought their building techniques that two very different styles of buildings were constructed, western style houses and the traditional Korean style houses. That latter construction became known as Hanok architecture.

Hanok homes

Hanok houses are built using pillars, beams, and rafters, but without using nails to attach them. The cuts in the pieces allow them to fit tightly together. Traditionally, all these elements would be made of wood. That's still common, but other materials are now used as well. In addition, Hanok architecture uses stone blocks as cornerstones and under the wooden beams that make up the outer walls. This means the wood is not directly making contact with the ground which helps prevent water damage and rot.

A detail in one of the walls of one of the homes. I think tiger. Alrica thinks maybe tiger, maybe cat.

Hanok houses also have sloped roofs and overhangs at the ends of them. The width of the overhang and the pitch of the roof depend on where the house is being built and the conditions in the area. The slope is meant to help with dispersing rain and the overhangs block the sun from shining directly into the house in the summer. They overhang the windows so the sun, high in the sky, doesn't heat the house as much. In the winter when snow is on the ground, and when the sun is lower, those slopes and overhangs help to direct more sunlight into the house. This includes direct sunlight, but also the light reflecting off the white snow. Traditionally, the roof would be made of thatch, but modern Hanok architecture uses tiles. And they are not flat tiles, but rounded to better resist hail and sleet.

You can check out the roof and the overhangs

Perhaps the biggest innovation of the Hanok is the ondul. This is the heating system. Fireplaces are inefficient losing a lot of the heat energy up the flue. In a Korean home, the floor of the house was placed over large stones called baking stones. These stones absorb heat well and slowly release it when they are hot. The ondul system consists of a furnace at one end of the perimeter of the house. Fuel is burned here and the hot air, smoke, and exhaust travels in tunnels under the house, heating the baking stones. The vent or the flue is on the opposite side of the perimeter of the house. The fires are lit, and the hot air and exhaust pass under the house, heating not only the house, but also the baking stones. Then, even after the fire is put out for the night, the baking stones stay hot and slowly radiate heat up through the floor of the house, keeping it warm all night long.

I love the traditional old-world style of the door along with the smart doorbell

This is still the preferred heating method for Korean homes today, even those built using Western style architecture. But there has been one change. Rather than the exhaust of an open flame heating the baking stones, now it is heated water from a boiler which travels in pipes around the baking stones. It is similar to a radiator or a baseboard heater in the west. But the difference is the stones which stay hot for longer and the fact that the heat comes up through the floor itself.

It is a very clean aesthetic

Eunpyeong Hanok Village is beautiful and this is only partially due to the lovely construction of the houses there. The backdrop is also amazing, surrounded by lofty and picturesque mountains.

The village and the mountains seen from the museum rooftop platform

While we were there we visited the Eunpyeong Hanok museum where we learned all this neat stuff about Hanok architecture. It also discussed the history of the village. One interesting thing I learned, when they decided to build Eunpyeong New Town, they found lots of old, old graves. Bodies had to be reinterred. And the reason is this. Long ago when Seoul (which was called Hanyang at the time) was the seat of the emporer, there was a law that no one could be buried within the city walls, nor within 4 kilometers of the city walls. (I assume it wasn't actually measured in kilometers back then, but it was a distance equivalent to 4 km today.) Eunpyeong was a nearby station for horses and messengers and travelers going into and out of Hanyang. And it was just outside the prescribed prohibition area for bodies. So it became a major place for burials of people from Hanyang.

This was inset in a wall displaying people in traditional Korean clothing called hanbok

In addition, the rooftop viewing area of the museum offers fantastic views of the village and the mountains. If you're ever in the area, you should visit!

Another detail in a wall calling nature to mind

We had a great time. And we got a bonus moment of magic. We were sitting in a gazebo along the Eunpyeong Trail. Surrounding the gazebo were many cherry blossom trees that still had a good number of petals. We were sitting, enjoying the trees, and how the occasional petal would fall. Then a breeze came through and many petals started streaming down. It was like we were watching snow fall outside a window, but the snow was delicate pink flower petals. It only lasted a few seconds, but it is a memory we will hold on to for years to come.