Anthropology of design: How traditional Korean architecture expands the terms of conservation, collaboration, and sustainable management

Abstract

This project examines South Korean preservation practices applied to hanok: vernacular wooden structures built during the Joseon (Chosŏn) Dynasty (1392–1910) through the first half of the twentieth Century. The analysis will evaluate preservation policies, practices and methodologies as products of relationships between heritage management institutions, communities inhabiting architectural heritage sites, vested interests’ land development projects, varying levels of awareness of heritage building values, and the understudied features of hanok architecture. The project illustrates the analytical and evaluative issues with case studies that reveal architectural design driven by sophisticated, yet under-stated aesthetics, interwoven with multi-disciplinary intellectual and multi-faceted scientific factors to an extent unique in East Asian architecture. The preservation zones selected to further illustrate this project offer unique case studies of architecture intrinsically tied to people in ways that are distinct in the cache of world heritage sites. This research expands on institutional definitions regarding proper preservation methods or policy by reintroducing traditional techniques that have evolved over centuries for maintaining the structure: technologies largely neglected in current preservation policies and procedures.