Dokrakdang House, Gyeongju

Walk a little further up the valley of the Jagyecheon stream from Oksan Seowon Confucian Academy, and behind an earthen wall you reach a house one family has kept for almost 500 years. This is Dokrakdang, "the hall of solitary joy", the guest wing built by Yi Eon-jeok (Hoejae), a pioneer of Joseon Neo-Confucianism, after he stepped down from office. With a window cut in its wall to look at the stream and a pavilion set on the rocks, the house shows how Korean scholars drew nature into their homes.

Where Yi Eon-jeok lived alone

Yi Eon-jeok (1491–1553) was born in Yangdong Village and rose through government service, but after being forced out for political reasons he built a house in this valley at Oksan and threw himself into study. He added the main house, the guest wing of Dokrakdang and the Gyejeong pavilion, and spent about six years here devoted to Neo-Confucian scholarship. Sources differ on the date of construction: 1516 or 1532. Later caught up in the purge of 1545, he was exiled to Ganggye in Pyeongan Province and died there; his son Yi Jeon-in brought his body home. Yi Eon-jeok's thought passed to Yi Hwang (Toegye) and became a root of the Yeongnam school, and after his death Oksan Seowon was founded close to Dokrakdang.

Dokrakdang was designated a Treasure in 1964, and it is still a head family house where descendants of the Yeoju Yi clan live and look after it. In the reign of Gwanghaegun, the poet Bak In-ro visited and wrote the gasa poem Dokrakdang in Yi's memory, comparing the surrounding peaks and the winding stream to Mount Wuyi in China, where Zhu Xi had lived.

A pair with Oksan Seowon

A short way down the valley from Dokrakdang is Oksan Seowon, the academy that honours Yi Eon-jeok. It was founded in 1572 by Yi Je-min, magistrate of Gyeongju, and the following year King Seonjo granted it the name "Oksan" as a royally chartered academy. It was one of only 47 academies to survive the closures ordered by the Heungseon Daewongun in 1871, and it has kept a large collection of old books, including a complete copy of Kim Bu-sik's Samguk Sagi. The academy was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2010 together with Yangdong Village and again in 2019 as one of the "Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies". You can walk down a single valley from the house where the scholar lived alone to the academy built in his memory.

What to look for

• The Dokrakdang hall: a building four bays wide and two deep under a hip-and-gable roof. The three right-hand bays form an open wooden floor and the left bay is an underfloor-heated room, though traces show the far right bay was once a room too. The ceiling leaves the rafters exposed.
• The slatted window in the wall: a window of narrow wooden slats set in the side wall lets you look out at the stream from inside the enclosure. A wall that closes the space while still letting the landscape in is a very unusual design.
• Gyejeong: a pavilion behind Dokrakdang, built against natural rock at the water's edge. Sit on its wooden floor and the stream runs right below you, with the woods and rocks of the far bank close at eye level. Scenes in the film Alienoid and the drama Captivating the King, where the leads play baduk and dip their feet in the stream, were shot at this pavilion and in the valley.
• Chinese honey locust: the tree inside the walls is a Natural Monument, about 470 years old and 14.5 m tall. Yi Eon-jeok is said to have grown it from seed given to him by a friend returning from a diplomatic mission to China.
• The five terraces: Yi named five rocks along the stream Gwaneodae, Takyeongdae, Sesimdae, Jingsimdae and Yeonggwidae. Sesimdae in front of Oksan Seowon is one of them.

Tripto tips

• Getting there: it is a walk of just over 10 minutes up the valley from Oksan Seowon. City bus 203 from Gyeongju Intercity Bus Terminal ends at the "Oksan 1-ri / Dokrakdang" stop, but buses are infrequent, so check the timetable in advance. There is a car park.
• Hours and fees: open at all times and free. Descendants live here, so do not open closed doors and keep your visit quiet.
• Time needed: 30–40 minutes for Dokrakdang alone, 1.5–2 hours together with Oksan Seowon.
• When to go: summer, when the stream runs full, and autumn, when the streamside woods change colour.
• Stay the night: Dokrakdang offers hanok stays. A head-house programme, "An Invitation to a 500-Year-Old Family Home from Master Hoejae", in which 18th-generation descendant Yi Hae-cheol tells the story of the house, followed by a workshop and a performance of the musical Dokrak, has also run as a heritage programme; check dates on the regional booking site Gyeongju Onna.
• Combine it with: Yangdong Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site about 8.5 km away, lets you link Yi Eon-jeok's birthplace and his retreat in one day.