A study on the debate on traditional technique for Architectural Heritage conservation - Focusing on the dispute over the application of traditional technique for the restoration of the Sungnyemun gate -

Since the recent restoration of the Sungnyemun gate (South gate of Seoul) which was burnt down in 2008, there were dispute about the application of traditional technique for the conservation of cultural heritage. In this research, the definition of traditional technique for cultural heritage conservation is thought and mentioned.In general, the understanding of traditional technique is based on the idea of ‘tradition’. Tradition is not defined as a ‘eternal doctrine existence’, but a ‘development of succession’ and a ‘living existence’. Thus ‘traditional performance and craft as intangible cultural heritage’ is defined as ‘intangible’ which also makes it difficult to define the ‘original form/state’ from ‘the conservation of the original form’ which is a major principle of cultural heritage.In case of Korea, if the ‘traditional technique as intangible cultural heritage’ is put into application to cultural heritage conservation, the unclear definition will cause many problems in the restoration/conservation site. This is because the site will apply this technique without any discussion of the range and limitation of ‘traditional technique’. This means there will be the lack of discussion for the conservation of the cultural heritage which will not have a strict criteria for the allowable range of usage for the ‘traditional material’ using the vaguely defined ‘traditional technique’. In this study, these application issues of the traditional technique were also considerecl, comparing the development of international wnservation principles.As a result, the conservation of ‘traditional technique as intangible cultural heritage’ is important, but the ‘technique left inside the tangible cultural heritage’ which is the ‘material which is carrying the technique when it was firstly built’ has more importance to preserve and need to be in the major considerations.