Seoul has a number of royal palaces and Gyeonghuigung is the least significant of all of them, due to its small size, but that doesn’t mean that this palace hasn’t seen more then its fair share of history:

The palace is much smaller then its original size due to the palace needing to fit on the grounds of the Seoul Museum when it was decided that the palace would be reconstructed.  The palace when it was first constructed in 1616 on the site of King Injo’s dad’s home was much larger.  The palace was originally called Gyeongdeok Palace until it was renamed Gyeonghuigung in 1760.  The name change was because the two other major palaces Changdeokgung and Gyeongbokgung both meant the Eastern Palace and the Northern Palace while Gyeonghuigung meant the Western Palace.  During the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century the palace was mostly torn down to make way for a Japanese children’s school.  The Seoul government decided to rebuild the palace on the grounds of the Seoul Museum in 1988.

The first thing visitors see when they come to visit the palace is the Heunghwamun Gate:

The gate was first constructed in 1616 and was torn down and moved to the south wall in 1915 to make way for a road.  The location of the gate was then moved in 1932 to the slopes of Namsan mountains to serve as the entrance to Bangmunsa, which was a shrine to the Japanese official Ito Hirobumi:

Ito Hirobumi

Hirobumi was the Resident-General of Korea when he was assassinated by Korean nationalist An Jung-geun in 1909, who was against the annexation of Korea by Japan.   After the Japanese were expelled from Korea in 1945, the shrine was changed to a government guesthouse.  A few years later the guesthouse was torn down and the gate became the front gate of the newly constructed Shilla Hotel.  Heunghwamun remained the front gate of the hotel for many decades until 1988 when the Korean government decided to reconstruct Gyeonghui Palace on the grounds of the Seoul Museum and moved the gate to its present location.  The gate’s design is very typical of other Korean royal gates even though it is smaller than ones found at the larger palaces.  Typical is something that best describes Gyeunghui Palace because there isn’t really anything different about this palace that makes it stand out from its more famous neighboring palaces in Seoul.

Through the doors of the inner gate there is a nice view of the throne room building Sungjeongjung:

Sungjeongjung was built in 1618 and is the main building of the Gyeonghui Palace.  The Korean kings would hold morning meetings or official ceremonies such as royal banquets or greeting foreign dignitaries:

When these meetings were held the government officials used these stone markers to designate where the different governmental and military officials stood during reviews by the king:

The surrounding wooden wall that surrounds the inner courtyard provides for some nice colorful photographs:

When walking up the steps of Sunjeongjung there is also some really nice stone artwork:

I have no idea if this is historical or recently created artwork, but it was nice nevertheless:

The throne room within Sungjeongjung is decorated with some lavish artwork as well:

The painting behind the throne represents the sun, the moon, and the five sacred mountains of Korea. The room is really incredible to look at with its highly detailed artwork and an extravagant carving of two dragons on the roof:

As impressive as this room is, the King actually did not use it all that often. Near the throne room there is actually another building that the King used to hold meetings with his ministers.  Finally, here is a picture of the palace’s roof decorated with small and decorative statues of animals that represent an old Asian tale about a monkey king:

There is not much to this palace, but it is definitely worth taking a walk through as part of any visit to the Seoul Museum.  If you are visiting the Seoul Museum you must have some interest in Korean history in the first place, which should make visiting this palace of interest.