Changes in Plan and Hierarchy in the Building of the Woongjin period of Baekje
Authors:   The hoseo Archaeological Society, Lee Hyunsook 
Published: July 2023

This The palace is a formal structure representing the authority of the king and can be said to be the largest complex building group since ancient times. Ancient countries in Northeast Asia generally used ancient Chinese palaces as models and built palaces, and various norms and rituals were applied.
However, since differences in perception of nature, topographical conditions, and differences in the use of tools and living customs cannot be excluded, a review based on the topography and environment of the area is needed in the construction of the royal palace. Therefore, the structure and hierarchy of royal palace-related buildings in Gongsanseong Castle, which is the Castle of Woongjin in Baekje, need to be judged on the premise of understanding the use and location of space using natural terrain. In particular, in the case of ground buildings, it is difficult to grasp the superstructure based on archaeological investigations, so there is a limit to the hierarchical review of ancient architecture defined by the system. Accordingly, based on the size and structure of the building site in the Woongjin period Baekje Castle, and the spatial compartment that can be identified in the arrangement of the building within the unit space, we tried to understand the changes and hierarchies of the building site in the Woongjin period of Baekje.
First of all, the biggest changes in the building site in Baekje's Castle during the Woongjin period include a ground building, standardization of plane structure and scale, and spatial composition by compartments. Although the size of the building site has been miniaturized compared to the Hanseong period, it can be seen that the grounding of the building has been stably carried out based on the wooden structure. The structure of the building site shows that the Byeokju-building(벽주건물) and the Gulipju-building(굴립주건물) in the early Woongjin period are expanded from the initial planar structure to the side, resulting in space division and enlargement by the compartment.
The hierarchy of Baekje building sites during the Woongjin period can be divided around location, plan and size, and left direction. As for the location, planned building arrangements were made after the site was divided by infrastructure such as roads and drainage channels to overcome the limitations of the topography such as hilly lines and lowlands. It can be inferred that the space was controlled in the left-facing arrangement that conformed to the location and land of the building, and the spatial composition and hierarchy according to the function were distinguished. The floor plan of the building is divided into a square Byeokju-building(벽주건물) and a Gulipju-building(굴립주건물).
The distribution of buildings differs between the central building group and the surrounding building group. In the ruins related to the royal palace in the south of Gongbukru(공북루), the space is divided into five stages of land, and the land gradually increases. In addition, the presumed royal palace site forms a land as it gradually rises from the access road to the east. In other words, you enter while looking up at a building located on a high land from a low area. It's worth noting that it's forced to look up from a low point of view, which highlights the authority of the building and emphasizes symbolism.