Searching for a Criteria of Restoration and Reuse: HEUKLINGAK
photographed by
Kim Changmook (unless otherwise indicated)
SPACE February 2026 (No. 699)
The house of black scales, HEUKLINGAK (黑鱗閣), is named after its grey Japanese-style roof tiles and burnt red pine wood surface, both of which resemble black scales. The journey taken by this jeoksan (Japanese colonial property) house in Mokpo’s old city centre to reclaim its previous appearance leads one to scrutinise the restoration and use of modern architectural heritage in the present as well as in the future. This discussion features Kim Gyungin (Principal, Landscape Design SHARE), who spearheaded the restoration of HEUKLINGAK, and Seo Dongchun (Professor, Mokpo National University), a researcher of modern historical cultural heritage. Editor
The front of HEUKLINGAK as seen from Beonhwa-ro. The restoration focused on maintaining the distinctive scale and sense of proportion characteristic of nagaya, faithfully reconstructing the roof, exterior walls, windows, bay windows (first floor), and protruding balustrades (second floor).
interview Kim Gyungin Pricipal, Landscape Design SHARE × Seo Dongchun Professor, Mokpo National University × Bang Yukyung
Bang Yukyung (Bang): You’ve restored this Japanese-style house, which was built in the mid-1920s, to return to something very close to its original form. I wonder how you found the building and what led you to purchase it.
Kim Gyungin (Kim): I was born in Jeonju and grew up in Hanok Village. Thanks to that, I often travelled with my family to places such as Gunsan, Daegu, Incheon, and Pohang, where a sense of modern and contemporary history is still present. When I first visited Mokpo in 2017, I wandered through the jeoksan houses that line the quiet original city centre, thinking that it would be wonderful to live in one of them after restoring it properly. Not long after that, I found HEUKLINGAK. It was the slightly visible, set-back elevation of the second floor behind the signboard that caught my eye. This distinctive appearance was unique to this house among the Japanese-style houses in Mokpo, cladded with its shingle wall and lime plaster wall.
Seo Dongchun (Seo): The Beonhwa-ro in Mokpo, opened in 1897, was developed as a major commercial street for Japanese people. It is lined primarily with machiya and nagaya,▼1 which create a continuous street frontage. The method of setting back the second floor is considered old-fashioned, even in Japan.▼2 This was because the Great Kantō Earthquake (1923) destroyed most timber buildings following collapse or fire damage, and the reconstruction process saw Japanese signboard architecture▼3 emerge, rather than timber or masonry structures. While timber buildings with set-back second floors are common in Kyoto, a historic city, they are almost unseen in Tokyo, for the same reason. HEUKLINGAK was a unique case in that, unlike neighbouring buildings constructed ...
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Kim Gyungin
Kim Gyungin is a landscape and spatial expert who has researched the influence of the environment on human cognition, thought, and behaviour. She graduated from Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Environmental Studies and received a Doctor of Engineering degree from Kyoto University in Japan. Since then, she has spent over 25 years working on the theme of ‘people-centred space’, including urban, public, school, and elderly spaces. As a landscape expert, she purchased and restored HEUKLINGAK, the modern building in Mokpo’s old city centre, presenting it as an example of how architectural preservation can revitalise urban memory and street landscapes.
Seo Dongchun
Seo Dongchun is a Professor in the Department of Architecture at Mokpo National University. Having obtained his Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of Tokyo in Japan, he now conducts research on the architectural and urban history of East Asia based on comparative analyses of Korea, China, and Japan. His primary research themes are the comparative study of modern Korean and Japanese architecture and the comparative study of open port cities in East Asia, as well as the concepts of historicity and regionalism in architecture. His publications include Between Revivalism and Westernization, and his translations include Comparative Architectural History of Japan and Korea, and A Story of Japanese Architecture.
