Gyeongbokgung

Gyeongbokgung is a former royal palace in the heart of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Completed in 1395 as the first and principal palace of the Joseon dynasty, it was burned during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s, rebuilt on a grand scale in the 1860s, and then largely dismantled under Japanese colonial rule. Since 1990 it has been the subject of one of the largest restoration programmes in East Asia, and it remains a powerful symbol of Korean sovereignty.

After founding the Joseon state in 1392, King Taejo chose Hanyang, today's Seoul, as his capital in 1394. Work on the palace started late that year and its first phase was finished in the autumn of 1395. The official Chŏng Tojŏn named it after a line from the ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry; the name is usually understood as "palace greatly blessed by heaven". Its plan followed Chinese ritual texts and geomantic principles, with three gates and three courtyards laid out along a north–south axis beneath Bugaksan mountain. The Neo-Confucian names Chŏng chose for its halls reflected the new state's preference for Confucianism over Buddhism.

Political turmoil soon followed. The court moved to Kaesong in 1398 and returned only in 1405, and King Taejong preferred to live in the newer Changdeokgung palace. Gyeongbokgung came fully into its own under Sejong the Great, who made it his main residence in the 1420s and enlarged it. It housed a water clock, an observatory and a workshop for movable type, and scholars working in its halls helped Sejong devise Hangul, the Korean alphabet.

In 1592, during the Imjin War, Gyeongbokgung and the city's other palaces were burned to the ground. Who set the fires is disputed: some Korean writings of the time repeat rumours that commoners burned the palace to destroy its records, but the palace was reportedly still standing when the Japanese army entered the city, and Japanese troops later burned buildings as their fortunes turned. After the war Joseon could not afford to rebuild it, and the site stood largely empty for some 270 years.

In 1865 Queen Sinjeong, regent for the young King Gojong, ordered its reconstruction. The royal family moved in in 1868, and after two serious fires in 1873 and 1876 the work was completed in 1888, by which time the palace held around 500 buildings. Korea's first electric light was switched on here in 1887. In 1895 Queen Min was assassinated inside the palace by Japanese agents, and Gojong fled the following year to the Russian legation. When he returned he chose a different palace and proclaimed the Korean Empire, and Gyeongbokgung saw little royal use again.

Japan began ruling Korea indirectly in 1905, turned the palace grounds into a public park in 1907, and annexed the country in 1910, when palace buildings were being auctioned off, mostly to Japanese buyers. Under the colonial government of the Empire of Japan the palace was systematically stripped. Dozens of buildings were cleared for an industrial exhibition in 1915, one hall was reassembled at a businessman's home in Tokyo, and between 1916 and 1926 the massive Government-General Building was erected directly in front of the throne hall. Historians have read its Western styling as an attempt to cast Japan as modern and Korea as backward. By 1945 only about 40 of the 1888 buildings survived.

After liberation in 1945 the Government-General Building served the United States military government and hosted the ceremony establishing South Korea. The palace was damaged and looted in the Korean War, reopened in 1953, and was designated a Historic Site in 1963. Early repairs were modest and sometimes controversial: the main gate, Gwanghwamun, was rebuilt in concrete in 1968 away from its original position.

A first restoration plan, launched in 1990 and completed in 2010, aimed to return the palace to its 1888 state and recreated 89 buildings. After long public debate the Government-General Building was demolished in 1995 and 1996, and a hall that had been taken to Japan was returned. Gwanghwamun was rebuilt in its proper place between 2006 and 2010. A second plan, due to run until 2045, intends to recreate 90 more buildings, though the authenticity of reconstructions remains debated. The throne hall Geunjeongjeon and the banquet pavilion Gyeonghoeru, both rebuilt in 1867, are National Treasures of South Korea.