• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.23 no.5 s.77
• /
• pp.63-77
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes and the characteristics of the attitudes toward children and spaces provided for them. by analyzing people's daily lives in housing spaces and architects' floor plans between the 1920s and the 1960s. Different kinds of data were obtained from a variety of early literature, research reports, newspaper articles, historical documents, and magazines from the period. Findings of this study are as follows: 1. Before modernization in Korea, children had been regarded as immature persons. Confucian ideas of children viewed them as 'small adults' or 'immature adults.' Thus spaces for children's daily lives were neither differentiated from those of the adults' nor deemed important. However, since the Western invasions and colonization by Japan, a remarkable change in the attitudes toward children took place. Children began to be considered a hope for the future as well as members of modem families. In addition, the introduction of the new word, 'eorini (children),' by Mr. Bang Jeonghwan, brought about a significant change in social consciousness of children. 2. The appearance of 'adongshil (children's room)' on architects' floor plans, which was a result of the social critique against androcentrism during the l930s and 1940s, was highly meaningful. The new floor plans not only emphasized rationalization of the space but also upgraded the children's status in the family. 3. Since the liberation (1945), children's space was differentiated from parental spare by the introduction of private rooms and shared spaces. The privacy of each generation was expressed by the division, and the generations were considered equal in this space distribution. In conclusion, the appearance of children's rooms required conflict-laden changes of social ideals and of the family system. It also was a symbol of modernization.