A study on the ㄱ-shaped Church in Korean Protestant churches

'ㄱ'자형 교회 건축에 관한 연구

This is a study on the ㄱ-shaped church in Korean Protestant churches. Since the Protestantism had been introduced into Korea, the style of ㄱ-shaped church was the popular style that have been fashioned in all the country of Korea. When the Protestantism was introduced into Korea, ideology which ruled over the Society of Chosun Dynasty was the Confucianism that emphasized the precepts, for example, the loyalty for the King, distinction between the sexes and so on. The Korean Protestants built the church which had ㄱ-shaped plan, so that they solved the second problem : 'distinction between the sexes'. The style of the ㄱ-shaped church is one of the characteristics which distinguish the Korean church from other nations'. Actually the ㄱ-shaped churches had been built by Korean Protestant denominations, from the early days of introducing the Protestantism till the end of 1920's. Even though most of the style of the ㄱ-shaped church is replaced with the modern style according to the extension of religious influence, luckily the ㄱ-shaped two churches : Kumsan Church(1908), Toodong Church(1929) are in existence in the Provice of ChonBuk. The purpose of this study is to make the architectural characteristics of the ㄱ-shaped church clear. This study is based on the actual survey of the ㄱ-shaped churches in existence: Kumsan Church, the Toodong Church and on the documents, photographs, interviews and so on for investigation not existing one now. The ㄱ-shaped church have the plan to separate men's side from women's with a right angle and have a pulpit which was placed at the meeting point of the front part of men's and women's sides. Generally, seen from the court, the churches have men's side in left and women's one in right. There was a screen blocking both sides in the church. But it disappeared in 1920's according to the change of the social conventionality. Most of its structural form is the Korean wooden style. The ㄱ-shaped church appeared in a transition period of the Korean church architecture.