A Study on the Traditional Houses of North Korea(I) - Based on the Memories of Immigrants from North Korea -
Architectural researches on the traditional houses of Korea have been studied mainly based on the data collected in the field survey. From explosively incresed real mesurements and drawings in the field, plenty of data have been collected. Those have been the basic data for verifing and developing the theories on the traditional house. But after Korean war the researchers in South-Korea were not able to approach to the field in North Korea, so the new data of North Korea were not added any more. The poverty of real data have caused regional unbalance in the researches. This paper aims at collecting new data of traditional house in North Korea. But still being prohibited for the researchers of South Korea to approach to the field, I had to depend on the memories and experiences of the immigrants from North Korea who are now living in Kyon-Nam and Pusan Province. Through the questionnaire and drawings, they described vivid memory of their old houses. I was able to collect the data of 71 cases, which are significant and valuable as much as those of the real field are. The data include the address and site condition, family structure, economic condition, construction period of each house, The drawings by themselves show the building forms and plans, the plans of each building, and the included spaces. Although the quantity of those data is not enough for statistical analysis, it shows general tendency for analizing regional charateristics, the differnces among economical classes, and the periodical change. It opens the way for verfying the existing theory. Analizing the data, I have some conclusions as followings: a. Most of researchers have classified the dominant housing type of Hamkyong-Do as 'the double fold' type. In this study, all cases of Hamkyongbuk-do also show 'the double fold plan with Chongju-kan'. But in Hamkyongnam-do some cases show 'the double fold plan without Chongju-kan, or projecting the stable into the yard, which seem to be different type from 'the double fold plan with Chongju-kan' b. Existing theories classified the dominant housing type of Pyongahn-do as 'two buildings with pararell arrangement'. This classification is verified with the plentiful cases in this study. Futhermore, I found new tendency, that is, getting higher econnomic condition, they construct annex buildings between the main buildings. Finally their houses show 'scattered ㅁ shape'. The houses included in this two types has narrow and closed inner yard, which is different from the houses of the same shape in the south region of Korea. c. Existing theories classified the dominant housing type of Hwanghae-do as 'ㅁ sape with Daechong' type. I found many cases of 'ㅁ shape', but only two cases show 'Daechong'. 'The doble fold' type was also founded. Unfortunately very few cases were sent from Hwanghae-do, it is not enough for finding general tendency.