Modern cities have long been cold impersonal spaces, only with the ruins of what was before. Buildings are like matchsticks on the streets, reminding me that all the traditional aspects of our lives have disappeared and people don’t seem to care much about our cultural assets. However, there are people who try to maintain the Korean traditions and they are from the Korean National University of Cultural Heritage.
We’ll see, among others, what effort the department of traditional architecture at NUCH has put to conserve and maintain Hanok, the traditional Korean house. Let’s find out what they do to globalize Hanok too.

 The first thing we need to do may be learn about the Korean National University of Cultural Heritage, which is located in Buyeo. This is a place where tradition is alive and well, and its’ history began when the founders made blue prints for a school building in 1996. Their goal was to recreate Korean traditional culture and architecture in the twenty first century, and the school has become a very important institution that tries to develop traditional culture contents. Now it has one of the top architectural departments in the world.

 They have established 6 departments. Listed below are introductions to each department’s goal
Dept of Cultural Properties Management Their ultimate goal is to contribute to the sustainable development of Korean traditional culture via vision and the efficient preservation and management.
Dept of Traditional Landscape Architecture The department aims to nurture specialists in the preservation, restoration and management of the natural heritage, planning and design, building of landscape structures, historical sites and monuments, by linking the modern and traditional landscaping heritages.
Dept of Traditional Architecture The goal of the department is to help students cultivate their capacity to exploit traditional architectural knowledge for the creation of modern architectural pieces and to train specialists who are committed to the preservation, transmission and development of Korean architecture.
Dept of Archaeology The courses offered by the department are designed to shed light on the processes of cultural change which occurred on the Korean peninsula via site surveys and excavations of relics of cultural heritage, and nurture specialists in the related fields of reconstructing the unknown past via systematic education and training programs.
Dept of Traditional Arts and Crafts The goal of the department is to establish the identity of Korea’s traditional arts and crafts based on everyday life via the creative application of past achievements to today’s arts and crafts, and to nurture a talented workforce armed with the necessary philosophy and expertise who will commit themselves to expanding the field of arts and crafts.
Dept of Conservation Science The department of conservation science aims to educate qualified experts who will devote themselves to the perpetual preservation and protection of important cultural properties via the acquisition of a comprehensive understanding of the materials and techniques used for them.

 Now we turn to the details about the Department of Traditional Architecture. The courses offered by the department are focused on nurturing an in-depth understanding of Korea's traditional architecture in relation to its history and traditional culture. The major areas of study include a variety of theories on spatial structure and composition techniques, mechanical interpretation of wooden structures, architecture and the environment, and architectural cost estimation and systems. The department also offers students a variety of on-site learning programs, which include archaeological field surveys, trimming and assemblage of timbers, excavation of architectural features, repair and restoration of cultural properties, etc.

 Among the coursework, is the senior project that is made up of three parts. The first one is the graduation thesis and then comes the reinstatement designing, and for the final touch comes the design and application.

 Graduation thesis is generally themes that mix the old and the modern.

 Reinstatement designing is, in other words, a restoration into a new theme after exploring historical sites.

 With their strong curriculum and environment, soon there will be many young experts in the field of Korean traditional style of architecture. Their efforts to combine tradition with modernity are impressive.

 One student from the Korean National University of Cultural Heritage said, “As I entered the Department of Traditional Construction Engineering and became intimate with architectural terms by memorizing them all night, I naturally became very fond of the construction techniques of our ancestors. I'm proud to provide support for national architecture for the future by bringing out merits that our traditional architecture has.”