soswaewon trip 01/10/11

The garden at soswaewon has special qualities. Its relation to place, topography and sense of serenity. The summerhouses have a changing character.  At times the light that filters through the trees, pierces through the internal space of the pavilion. At this point the pavilion is like a raised step in the landscape, above the river and outward toward the mountains.

At another time the pavilions and walls form a landscape within themselves, the gateways and pathways close you in to a state of seclusion. The shadow takes over from the light. I hear the sound of the water and the hollow bamboo tustling in the wind.

The walls, the steps and pathways are very important. Their are two types of wall. The terrace wall and the boundary wall.

The terrace wall is formed of stone, in a dry construction. It sits directly onto the rocks and forms a terrace. This is a mediation between nature and pavilion.

The boundary wall is a wall that sits on the landscape, like in the sketch above it cantilevers over the river instead of cutting through. The support for the wall is a pile of rocks, not a column of stone and mortar. This shows a clear understanding of existing and new, terrace wall and boundary wall.

The wall is traditional with mortar joints and a clay tile top. The boundary wall is not a continious entity nor a perimeter. It is a series of singular linear elements, its aim is not to disturb and direct, but to form pauses in the landscape.

At the top of the site the Jewoldang holds a view out to the Mudeung mountain. It is here, where the roof of the lower pavilion sits in the canopy, that i feel the most serenity. Beyond the fall of the river below i can see to the farmland.

We walked to the top of the mountain. To the place where the river starts forming the topography of the gardens. From the top down their are a series of agricultural gardens, that grow corn, chillies, peaches and persimon fruits. These three gardens are sloped landscape terraces. They are orientated around a burial ground, surrounded by fruit trees. That points towards a peak in the distance.  These terrace gardens wrap around the curvature of the mountain growing ever more secluded the further you go up. From the flat below these clearings are unoticable, the private demain of the buried spirit.

I decided to follow the river down its course. It makes its way through the lower runs of these terrace gardens. It follows the path down to the garden where it enters under the wall. 

The garden manipulates the flow of the water splitting it into a bamboo channel, this creates a series of levels to the water in the garden. Where it drops down the rocks below the lower pavilion (gwanpunggak) the bamboo channel bridges overhead, feeding the upper pond and water mill.

further down the water leaves the garden and heads into the bamboo forest. This forest forms a uneasy edge to the site. The verticality and crowdedness of this bamboo forms a dense darkness within meters of entering it, the garden suddenly feels very far away.

The river leaves the mountains and heads to the flatlands, the paddies and plantations.

The river feeds the plantations, the pattern of which spread out like a cloth upon the landscape. The most beautiful fields are to the west of soswaewon looking back towards it and towards lake gwanju to the north. The patterns are less linear than those in place in the garden, they are like the contours of a map. This feels a place of nature, despite being intensive agriculture.

The river forms the shape of the agriculture,  Its edges are stradled with machinery and polytunnels. The water is the joint between the mountain and agriculture. It forms the channels that feed the paddies and forms the rocks that make the garden.