By Kim Ki-tae
Staff Reporter


Kwanghwamun Gate, Seoul’s landmark structure that was restored in 1968, will be dismantled and reconstructed to its original Choson Kingdom form.

The Cultural Heritage Administration on Tuesday announced that it would disassemble the current ferroconcrete edifice and rebuild the original wooden structure by 2009. The new main entrance to Kyongbok Palace will be moved 14.5 meters to the south and rotated 5.6 degrees clockwise to its original position. The new building will be two-thirds the size of the present one.

The administration said that it would also restore a large stone platform and two guardian statues originally in front of the gate.




``The space in front of the gate will serve as Seoul’s equivalent to London’s Trafalgar Square or Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate,’’ the administration’s head Yoo Hong-joon said during a press conference held at the Kyongbok Palace complex.
The plaza is expected to be around 1,000 square meters.

Yoo hinted that the new central plaza will be enlarged when the the palace’s neighbors, specifically the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the U.S. Embassy, leave their current sites in few years. ``We are now consulting with other related government bodies for use of the new sites,’’ Yoo said.

However, the restoration projects, which will start late this year, are expected to aggravate the traffic flow to the capital’s central area. ``We are also discussing the subject to reduce any problems,’’ he added.

The administration also announced it would restore by 2015 the wall that encircled central Seoul when it was the capital of the Choson Kingdom. The castle wall was originally 18.2 kilometers long but now only 10.5-kilometer sections remain.

``Out of the total 7.7 kilometers of lost walls, we will rebuild 2.4 kilometers. For the rest of the 5.5 kilometers, we can not reconstruct the walls as there are streets there, but we will lay foundation stones for the people to recognize the vestige,’’ Yoo said.

With the restoration works planned, the administration intends to apply to UNESCO to designate the area as a Historic City or District. Around 130 cities around the world have won the designation and Kyongju in South Kyongsang Province is the only Korean city with the title.

Kwanghwamun Gate was first built in 1399, the fourth year of Choson Kingdom, but was burnt down during the Japanese invasion in late 16th century. It was restored in 1865, but the Japanese Imperialists moved the building to the northern part of the palace during the early 20th century. Then it was destroyed again during Korean War. It was 1968 when the main gate of the palace was restored, but there have been controversies over its location. Many claimed that the Japanese Imperialists rotated its façade slightly to face a Japanese Shinto shrine then located in Mt. Namsan, which made the palace’s overall design disproportionate.

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kkt@koreatimes.co.kr