UNESCO World Heritage Series: Part 5 – Hwaseong Fortress
By Matthew Fennell, Contributing Writer
For the next installment in our UNESCO World Heritage Series, the Asia Society made a trip to Hwaseong Fortress in the city of Suwon, Korea’s second largest municipality after Seoul. Suwon, in recent years, is best known for being the home of Samsung, where Galaxy cell phones and other technologies are developed and tested. More historically, Hwaseong is the only remaining walled city in Korea, built by King Jeongjo in the late 18th century. There were three reasons for constructing the fortress: to safeguard the city from attack, to form a new political center, and to protect the tomb of the legendary Prince Sado. In 1963, the Korean government designated the site a National Treasure, and it was awarded UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status in December 1997.
When built, Hwaseong showcased the ultimate in 18th-century military construction, integrating ideas from Europe and East Asia. The walls’ unique defensive features included floodgates, observation towers, command posts, beacon towers, and secret bunkers. Three watchtowers initially protected the fortress, each three stories high with wooden pavilions on top. Smoke and fire from the chimneys on the towers communicated messages to the city's inhabitants. The number of signals indicated a special meaning; one for peace, two for the sighting of an enemy, three for an approaching enemy, four if the enemy had entered the city, and five signals meant that fighting had begun.
Hwaseong differed from other fortresses found in Asia in that it housed commercial, political, and military installations together. The carefully planned structure applied the latest in scientific knowledge to combine both residential and defensive features. It had a significant influence on the future development of Korean architecture, landscaping, and urban planning. Despite experiencing extensive damage during the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War, the restoration initiative between 1975 and 1979 helped return Hwaseong and its five-kilometer wall to its former glory.