Hanok: an old kind of home with a surprisingly modern name
Hanok describes a traditional Korean house, but the name is newer than the building tradition. Seoul’s Hanok Portal explains that it emerged as Western-style architecture arrived, creating a need to distinguish familiar Korean houses from the new style.
A NAME BORN FROM COMPARISON
Something familiar needed a separate label once a different kind of building appeared. The history of an architectural tradition and the history of its name are not necessarily the same.
HANOK · 韓屋
Han refers to Korea, and ok means a house or building. ‘Traditional Korean house’ is a helpful starting point, but the label does not tell you when an individual house was built.
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