Dongnipgwan Hall

About this place

Located in Seodaemun Independence Park, Dongnipgwan is a reconstruction, based on historical research, of the former office of the Independence Club, which had been demolished during the Japanese colonial period. The building was originally Mohwagwan, a reception hall used to host Chinese envoys; after the Sino-Japanese War the Independence Club used it. From 1894 it was refurbished under Seo Jae-pil's proposal and renamed Dongnipgwan. It hosted patriotic debates promoting self-determination, civic rights and self-strengthening, and embodied the independence ideal alongside Dongnimmun, until the Japanese authorities demolished it. The original was a single-story Korean wooden building, 6 bays wide and 4 deep, with a seven-purlin hip-and-gable roof, sited about 350 m to the southeast. As part of Seodaemun Independence Park development, the above-ground floor was reconstructed as a Korean-style wooden building per expert advice to house spirit tablets of patriotic martyrs and exhibitions, while the basement is used for events and artifact storage. The reconstruction was built by Seoul in 1996.