• Korea Science and Art Forum
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• v.19
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• pp.293-305
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• 2015

At the same time the unique cultural traits of each country are valued, it has become an essential element to establish the cultural identity of a country. This study is aimed at comparing the residence architectural cultures in East-Asia and thus identifying Korea's own unique traits by determining the application characteristics of traditional architectures of Korea, China and Japan through practical investigation of materials, a basic element of architectural shaping. Literature survey and field study were conducted in parallel for this study, and architectural buildings under investigation included Mucheomdang House in Korea, Prince Gong Mansion in China and Dokyudo Building in Japan. Construction materials in Korea, China and Japan include natural materials such as wood, stone and clay, and artificial materials such as metals, paper, roof tiles, plug and glass. and the buildings were constructed with the combination of these materials. This commonality can be often found in the architectural composition. However, in the interior composition, the choice and application of different materials were clear between three countries, which were shown to be different depending on climates, processing methods and living culture of each country. First of all, since each country selected materials under the influence of its own vegetation and climates, living environment of each country could be seen via its residence. Also, it could be seen that while Korea and Japan show a certain similarity such as the traits of standing-sitting culture and the finish of paper in the interior, China is clearly different. In particular, regarding the material processing, the artificial processing was minimized in Korea, which mainly gave rough and crude feelings while due to the use of straight timbers, the architectural representation with organized and refined feelings was made in Japan. China showed the highest percentage of artificial processing of materials among three countries, which was highly associated with the coloring culture of China. Also, it could be seen that technology related to fine architectural materials such as bricks and glass was greatly advanced in China. Thus, how immaterial elements such as natural characteristics, functionality and aesthetics were applied in relation to residence in Korea, Japan and China could be determined through the comparison of architectural materials.