Korean gardens
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Korean gardens have a history that go back a thousand years, but are little known in the west. The oldest records date to Three Kingdoms period (57 BC- 668 AD) when architecture and palace gardens showed development as was noted in Samguk Sagi.
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[edit] Style of Korean Gardens
Influenced by Chinese gardens, and similar to English gardens, Korean gardens are natural, simple, and unforced. They involve both the people within them, and the buildings, in an unforced and at times irregular asymmetry, where the total landscape flows in a natural and progressive way without being forced, or ritualized. Western landscape designs by the likes of Capability Brown and the American Frederick Law Olmsted are comparable.
Gardens are generally classified into eight categories: palaces, private residence, country village or Byolso, pavilions, Buddhist temples, Confucian academies, royal funerary grounds and villages.
While each has unique features, generally they include: shaped trees, landscape elements from mountains through hills, various sizes of rivers or streams to scale, small circular ponds, larger ponds with islands within them, stands of bamboo, "rockeries" or multiple rock arrangements, waterfalls where possible, granite basins of square or round design, pear, apple, and other fruit trees. Harmony depended on no single feature or absolute form dominating the perspective.
[edit] Representative Korean Gardens
The most central and representative and relatively undisturbed classical Korean gardens are in three complexes.
- The Ihsong mountain fortress of Paekche near Seoul, where one finds numerous rockeries depicting turtles, dragons or phoenixes
- The Anhak Palace Garden of Goguryeo near Pyongyang, where one finds the remains of three rock Garden complexes.
- The Anapji Garden of Silla in Gyeongju is perhaps the best known, with three islands in the pond, man-made waterfalls in two tiers, granite basins of round and square design as well as hundreds of rock arrangement along its curbed shore.
Further important gardens, often historical recreations, are found at these sites:
- The rear garden of Changyeong palace in Seoul, especially the Buyong pond with the pavilion of cosmic union.
- The Chongpyong-sa (temple) near Choonchon.
[edit] Current Restoration Work
National scholars in the Republic of Korea are now attempting to build a database through drawings, photographs, and surveys of the landscape of traditional gardens, and attempt recreations.
Rumoured attempts at recreating classical Korean gardens are said to be occurring on small scales in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but as yet there is no pictorial evidence.
[edit] Trees, plants and symbolic landscape of Korean Gardens
The vernacular of the Korean garden generally includes evergreen trees (various species of Korean pine) as a constant, flowering pear trees for spring; stands of straightest bamboo alongside the secondary entrance gates of temples and palaces to symbolize fidelity and honesty; and straight walks tend to be bordered by larger sized gravels of irregular shape.
Terrain tends to follow natural courses, and unlike traditional Chinese gardens, the use of straight paths is not proscribed, but lessened. Significant or important elements tend to face east. And Korean readings of feng shui are regarded with great care, as geomancy was a strong influence in aligning the gardens with stelae, halls and buildings.
[edit] Unusual Features
Amongst interesting features of Korean gardens are elements which drew birds; as well as the notable secret gardens.
The famous secret gardens of Imperial Palaces in Seoul are often mentioned, and were used as a private area for the royal family for the exclusion of courtiers for times of meditation and rest.
[edit] Korean Gardens Abroad
A traditional Korean garden is currently under construction in Nantes, France. "Suncheon Garden", a 5000 square metre site, is enclosed within Blottereau Park, and celebrates the 120th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Korea and France.
[edit] Korean Garden Society
The Traditional Korean Garden Society in Seoul, ROK, often sponsors lectures and tours of Korean gardens with Professor Sim Woo-kyung often acting as host and landscape interpreter.
