In 2000, the Seoul metropolitan government began subsidizing hanok projects, deeming them a “public good” that would help “preserve and promote traditional Korean culture.” Today, a new hanok in Eunpyeong, which can cost between $200,000 and $300,000 to build, not including land and design fees, can acquire about half that in interest-free loans or cash grants, though this municipal funding comes with constraints: Each design submitted for consideration has to be cleared by a review board of professors, researchers and architects selected by the city’s Hanok Development Division. Their guidelines are both specific (no visible steel reinforcements; exposed wooden pillars must have a foundation stone); and poetically open to improvisation (the layout should “reflect harmony with the natural topography and historic resources” and the plan should account for “existing urban structures and resources worthy of preservation”).

In zones like Bukchon, a neighborhood in the central historic district, standards are stricter: A design might be rejected for using windows that are “too Japanese” (an etched floral pattern, perhaps) or for incorporating red bricks on the outer walls. Though the council’s decisions favor the traditional lines of pre-20th-century hanok, with broad eaves and wooden walls, the standards for the 150 homes in Eunpyeong are looser; the village is viewed as an opportunity to experiment with the form. In order to shape the redevelopment project to which the neighborhood belongs, the district cobbled together land from the greenbelt, the markets and former shantytowns. The project was criticized for demolishing Hanyang Jutaek, a collection of modest concrete homes that, ironically, were built in the 1970s to demonstrate modernity to a visiting North Korean delegation.

Once these houses were razed, Eunpyeong became one of few Seoul neighborhoods zoned for low-story homes, so as not to block views of the nearby mountains. But, unusually, the government decided hanok in particular would best complement the landscape and the nearby Buddhist temple. Most Korean architects no longer fully adhere to pungsu-jiri — the geomantic design principles that call for spatial arrangements such as a mountain at your back and a stream to the front — but the connections between hanok and nature remain deeply rooted; if the high-rise apartment is humanity’s attempt to transcend the confines of earth, then the hanok humbly embraces the natural terrain, its rooflines echoing the foothills’ ridges. “For me, the true value in a hanok is the madang,” says the acclaimed hanok architect Cho Junggoo, referring to the building’s central courtyard. “It’s where ground, nature and sky meet in your life. An apartment can’t do that.”