Pagodas

 

Second in a series of two

For those interested in pagodas, there is a feast at the National Cultural Museum of South Korea, Ichon, Seoul.  While some of them are old, my feeling is that some of them were made in our time.

It struck me that in the vicinity of temples, in surrounding woods, for example, that small stone piles were made by devotees from time to time.  I wondered whether pagodas and this urge or ritual for piling stones are related.

In the National Cultural History Museum, I saw the tallest pagoda I’ve seen.  I become confused trying to count the levels which, I am told, should always have an uneven number.  Pagodas, I was also told, played an important role in communities, perhaps like roadside chapels in Europe.  See the people at the bottom of the pagoda.  I had to mount three flights of stairs to get the photograph at this height.

If I look at the traditional forms of architecture in Korea, which also occur in China and Japan, I imagine that the pagoda with its ancient form, has had an influence, consciously or unconsciously, on architects.  Here is the main building in the other cultural history museum in Seoul.

 

© Will van der Walt

www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

September, 2019

 

My photographs

 

 

South Korea

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