• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.78-88
• /
• 2015

In the 1920s, the period of cultural governance ruled by Japan, the diverse media were founded and various events were conducted to boost circulation. Under the Japanese colonial period in 1920s, a number of media - newspapers and magazines - were published and often they carried out entertaining events in order to obtain more subscribers. A hobby magazine, Samchunri, for instace, set up a media event to selecting Korea's eight beautiful scenary (Bandopalgyong) for the first edition in 1929. The paper aims to analyse and understand the perception of landscape in 1929 through the media event carried out by Samchunri. In particular, the selection was made by well-known writers within Japanese colonial period 1910 - 1945). The selection process and views from the writers on landscape were analysed; firstly, the selection of Bandopalgyong was carried out by questionnaires to writers in 1929 where Korea is under Japanese colonial rules. The conditions of the selection were unknown; however, the purpose was enlightening the people specially the youngs and introduction of beautiful places in Korea. As a result, views and opinions on Bandopalgyong by the writers were progressed. Secondly, within the Bandopalgyong, the natural landscape areas include Gumgansan(金剛山), Daedonggang(大洞江), Buyeo(扶餘), Gyongju(慶州), Myongsasipri (明沙十里), Haundae(海雲臺), Baekdusan(白頭山), and Choksukru(矗石樓). Those chosen places were not cohesive nor did not have any consistant reasons to be chosen in terms of size and location; however, some writers claimed that there were other places to match the chosen ones and therefore, the selection process was highly dependent on access (i.e. transport). Thirdly, the travelogue on Baekdusan and Nackwhaam(洛花岩) illustrated interesting views on landscape in particular. Baekdusan landscape were described in overlaping with long history and national soul. In the Nackwhaam travelogue, it described 'Buyeo (夫餘) was an ancient capital of Backjae Dynasty and empty place' as well as denying Chosun Dynasty. It was assumed that the two places weren't visited but rewritten with existing literatures. Fourthly, edited by Kim Dong Whan, a travelogue style book, 'Bandosanha' was published in 1941. It did repeat the selection of Bandopalgyong, but this time, it was classified the eight beautiful landscape into two categories; historic/cultural places and natural landscape. This paper was able to analyse and understand the perception of landscape in 1929 through the travelogue of Samchunri. It is an empirical study on the process and perception on Korea landscape under Japanese colonical period by views of the selected writers.