Nakseonjae, the Unpainted House at Changdeokgung

The last gate on the route: Jangnakmun

Royal Palaces and Tombs Center tour route: the Changdeokgung palace-buildings route runs Donhwamun → Geumcheongyo → Injeongjeon → Seonjeongjeon → Huijeongdang → Daejojeon → Nakseonjae, with Nakseonjae last (the Secret Garden is a separate route). The Korea Heritage Service places Nakseonjae on the boundary between Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung.

Changdeokgung’s main gate, Donhwamun, is under repair, so for now you enter by Geumhomun on the west side. Elena does the same. The Royal Palaces and Tombs Center gives the order for the palace buildings as Donhwamun, Geumcheongyo, Injeongjeon, Seonjeongjeon, Huijeongdang, Daejojeon — and Nakseonjae, last of all. Find on the map

She passes Injeongjeon and heads east. The eaves Rina looked up at over Injeongjeon were thick with colour. Walking the route, Elena decides to watch for where that colour stops.

The Korea Heritage Service places Nakseonjae on the boundary between Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung, at the palace’s eastern edge. You go in through Jangnakmun, the main gate in the southern haenggak — the long, low wing that wraps around the yard.

Elena stops once at the gate. Through it lies a wide yard, and across the yard a single house. Under its eaves, the colour is the colour of wood.

A house without dancheong

From the Korea Heritage Service’s description of Nakseonjae (Treasure): built in 1847, the thirteenth year of King Heonjong (the Center’s timeline: on the site of Nakseondang). It was first built as the king’s private quarters; the following year Seokbokheon was built for a royal consort and Sugangjae was rebuilt. Nakseonjae and Yeongyeongdang are the only buildings inside a palace built in the style of a scholar-official’s house. Unlike the palace sleeping halls, it was left without dancheong paint. Through Jangnakmun, the main gate in the southern wing, it stands across a wide yard, six bays wide and two deep, with a raised pavilion room (nu-maru) projecting at the far left. Its doors and windows carry many lattice patterns, and the round “full-moon” doorway between the nu-maru and the heated room behind it is singled out as the finest detail.

Nakseonjae was built in 1847, the thirteenth year of King Heonjong, on the site of an earlier hall called Nakseondang, according to the Center’s timeline. The Korea Heritage Service says it was first built as the king’s private quarters; the next year Seokbokheon went up beside it and Sugangjae was rebuilt. One more line in the description matters here: only two buildings inside a palace were built in the style of a scholar-official’s house, Nakseonjae and Yeongyeongdang. Find on the map

So there is no dancheong. Unlike the royal sleeping halls, this house was left without dancheong paint. It is six bays across and two deep, and at the far left one bay steps forward and sits up on tall, column-like foundation stones — the nu-maru, a raised pavilion room. Elena looks at it for a long time from the yard. Without dancheong, what reaches her first is the grain of the wood, the white walls, and the height the room gains from its stones.

Where the colour went, there is pattern. The Korea Heritage Service notes the many lattice designs on the doors and windows; the latticework does not settle on a single shape. The scholar’s-house style does not mean a plain house: the description adds that elements of the palace sleeping hall were worked in, with decoration hard to find anywhere else. Elena writes: “Pattern instead of colour.”

The detail the description calls the finest of all is a round doorway — the full-moon door between the nu-maru and the heated room behind it. It sits inside, so today Elena knows it only from the description. On screen, the camera would have gone into the room and used that circle as a frame. Someone who walks here meets it from outside, in a single line of text.

A house lived in until 1989

From the Korea Heritage Service: right after the Gapsin Coup of 1884, Nakseonjae served as King Gojong’s office; later Crown Prince Yeongchin (Yi Eun) lived here from 1963 to 1970, and Lady Yi Bang-ja lived here from 1966 to 1989. The Royal Palaces and Tombs Center describes the Nakseonjae compound as the place where the last imperial family of the Korean Empire — Empress Sunjeonghyo, Crown Princess Uimin (Lady Yi Bang-ja) and Princess Deokhye — lived after Liberation until they died. Seokbokheon and Sugangjae have been considerably altered.

The house did not stop in 1847. The Korea Heritage Service records that right after the Gapsin Coup of 1884, King Gojong used it as his office. After that, the description jumps to the second half of the twentieth century. Find on the map

To the right of Nakseonjae run Seokbokheon and Sugangjae: Seokbokheon, built the year after Nakseonjae as quarters for a royal consort, and Sugangjae, rebuilt at the same time. The Korea Heritage Service says Nakseonjae keeps its old form fairly well, while Seokbokheon and Sugangjae have been considerably altered.

Crown Prince Yeongchin, Yi Eun, lived here from 1963 to 1970, and Lady Yi Bang-ja lived here from 1966 to 1989. The Royal Palaces and Tombs Center describes the Nakseonjae compound as the place where the last imperial family of the Korean Empire — Empress Sunjeonghyo, Lady Yi Bang-ja and Princess Deokhye — lived after Liberation until they died. Elena copies the last year into her notebook: 1989. About ten years before she was born.

Behind the house, the description says, are terraced flower beds called hwagye, and beyond the patterned wall above them the pavilions Sangnyangjeong, Hanjeongdang and Chwiunjeong. When the Center opened a special guided walk there this spring, it introduced the area as a place “where visitor access has normally been restricted”. Elena does not go round the back. She looks up once past the roofline from the yard, and turns away.

Palaces on screen are remembered in colour. The last house on Changdeokgung’s route was left without dancheong. What it kept instead is the pattern of its lattices, a round door inside, and the time of a household that went on until 1989. Next to the question on her first line, Elena writes her answer: “Pattern — and time.”

Her advice comes in two parts. Don’t turn back at Injeongjeon; walk the route to the end. And if you want to hear more about this house, time your visit for the in-depth Nakseonjae tour on Friday, Saturday or Sunday at 2:30 pm. Changdeokgung is closed on Mondays.

(※ This article includes staged images created with AI.)