Maerim Seowon

About this place

Maerim Seowon is a Confucian academy founded in 1707 by the public consensus of local Confucian scholars to commemorate the learning and virtuous conduct of Gwak Su-gang, a physician-scholar of the Joseon period, and the scholar O Seon-gi, and to enshrine their spirit tablets. While it served a role in venerating past sages and providing local education, it was demolished in 1868 under the Regent Heungseon Daewongun's order to abolish the seowon; it was later restored in 1981 and remains as it appears today. Maerim Seowon largely consists of a shrine, a lecture hall, an eastern dormitory, a western dormitory, an inner three-gate, and an outer three-gate, with the Pungbangnu pavilion at the entrance, as well as a stele pavilion and a hexagonal pavilion arranged within the academy. On the whole, upon entering the gateway there is a study hall, with the eastern and western dormitories on either side of it and the shrine to the rear. The shrine, Sunggyeongsa, stands behind the lecture hall and is a single-story, gable-roofed building three bays wide and two bays deep.