View of stone pillar bases of the West Image Hall, Mireuksa temple site, Korea, 1917, original image dry plate photograph. National Museum of Korea, pan 23141

Ancient Korean Architecture in Context,
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
Online webinar, July 26, 8:30-10:30am EDT

This webinar, inspired by the current exhibition Once Upon a Roof: Vanished Korean Architecture, examines recent research findings on ancient Korean architecture and ceramic roof tiles created more than one thousand years ago during the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla kingdoms. Although no buildings from these periods survive, archaeological surveys reveal the advent of distinct regional styles on the peninsula that contributed to the complex cultural exchanges taking place in East Asia from the fifth through the ninth centuries. The four featured scholars from Korea and the United States will place Korea's earliest wooden architectural traditions in a broader East Asian context. Special emphasis is placed on roof tiles— the subject of the current exhibition—and two speakers will address the original design and fabrication of a special type of ornamented roof tile, called chimi in Korean, that crowned both ends of the main roof ridge of prominent buildings. Using examples excavated at important historical sites, specialists will address their discovery and reconstruction.
Speakers include:
Nancy S. Steinhardt, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Lee Byongho, Gongju National University of Education, Gongju
Jeong Hyun, National Museum of Korea, Seoul
Hwang Hyun Sung, National Museum of Korea, Seoul

Read more and register, click here