The purpose of this study is to critically investigate the ways in which scholars and architects in Korea have theorised the tradition in Korean architecture from the early 20th century to the present. After opening the door to foreign powers, the most important issue to be resolved in Korea architecture has been the modernization of the traditional architecture. The successful modernization of Korean traditional architecture depends on successful theorization of the tradition. However, many attempts to theorise the uniqueness of tradition in Korean architecture had not been instrumental to the modernization of Korean traditional architecture. The reason why they were not successful lies in the lack of philosophical and methodological reflection upon how to approach the tradition. They were either trapped in ambiguous essentialism without systematic methods and theories, or simply inventing the tradition from the vantage point of the present. This paper argues that in order to theorise the tradition, one need to translate the tradition into contemporary architectural vocabularies. What is important in translating the tradition is not to directly apply contemporary concepts and perceptual frame of architecture to traditional architecture but to find the gaps and differences between the two. This will open hermeneutic spaces to translate the tradition into useful principles and vocabularies of comtemporary architecture.

Abstract
 1. 서 론
 2. 초기 한국건축의 고유미에 대한 이론; 직관과 감각
 3. 전통건축의 형식적 이론화
  3-1. 비례와 기하학적 분석
  3-2. 외부공간형식의 분석
 4. 인문학적 관점의 전통건축 이론화
  4-1. 김수근의 전통건축 공간론
  4-2. 설계도구로서의 개념어
  4-3. 전통건축의 현대적 발견
  4-4. 전통사상을 통한 전통건축의 원리적 해석
 5. 서양건축의 인식틀을 통한 전통의 이론화
  5-1. 한국건축 고유성 해석의 인식론적 문제
  5-2. 한국건축과 서양건축 원리의 형식적 비교
 6. 전통의 현대적 번역과 차이
  6-1. 전통의 현대적 번역
  6-2. 한국건축과 서양건축의 차이
 7. 맺음말
 References

• 이상현(건국대학교 건축전문대학원 교수) | Lee Sang-Hun Corresponding Author