Terrain, a first record in 413, and meanings a bridge can hold

Despite the peninsula’s many ridges and rivers, which might have cut regions off from one another, Korea, the writer says, still achieved cultural growth, and bridges had a part in that. Even now, when wealth and technique are high, building a bridge is not a simple calculation. Many stories say the bridges ancestors built took influence from China; in fact, the writer argues, an understanding of the terrain in which they lived developed into bridges with a national character of their own. In number and in form, traditional Korean bridges did not match China’s variety and took much influence through exchange, yet they were not received as they were, and developed a distinctive indigenous form. The notes cite this to Son Yeong-sik, 1992, and that year stays in 1992.

The word for a bridge, the notes say, joins two senses: crossing from one bank to the other, and laying wood in order to cross water. It began when people, fishing or traveling, laid a log or a large stone to make a stream or a marsh easier to cross. The first record of a bridge in Korea, following Park Yeong-tae, 2019, is found in the Samguk Sagi, in the Silla annals, under Silseong Isageum, of a bridge the notes name the Great Bridge of Sinseong Pyeongyang-ju, with a year 413 attached in the notes. That year stays in 413. From this the writer takes it that bridge technique on the peninsula began in the Three Kingdoms period. That 2019 citation stays in 2019.

Old Korean bridges were used, first of all, as a means of connection on terrain where water often had to be crossed. As society developed, the state came to lead their building, and they had religious and spiritual roles as well as a place in ordinary life. They appear often in legends, myths, folktales, literature, and painting, so that the history of old Korean bridges can itself be called one among cultural histories of human life — a view the notes cite to a 2002 Hallim Culture Press volume, left in 2002. A bridge could hold the character of its place, a historical origin, an event, Buddhism, Daoism, a world after death, an approach to a sacred place, or a people’s wish. It connected point to point, and also environment, culture, nature and culture, bridge and person, person and person, individual and group, this world and an ideal world, and it allowed a traffic of feeling among people who were not specified in advance.

Cloud bridges and beam bridges, and a poem at Murunggye

To look at old Korean bridges, the notes say, one first needs the terms. Traditional bridges are typically divided into cloud bridges and beam bridges. A cloud bridge is another name for an arched hongye bridge, in a half-circle or an ellipse; it was so called because the finished form looks like a cloud. Its members, as the notes list them, include an imugi stone, a decorative block carved with a dragon’s head and hung on the railing or the arch; a short stone post set in the middle of a stone railing; large square stones piled beside the arch stones; a keystone at the crown; trapezoidal arch stones, wide on one side and a little narrower on the other; a ledge where the inner curve of the arch meets the base; a triangular stone with two curved sides fitted between connected arches; and large square stones at the very bottom of the arch. Those names are left as the notes give them.

A beam bridge, also called a flat bridge or a wide bridge, is the most general form: a flat deck of beams or boards laid on abutments or piers. Its members include thumb posts at the left and right edges of the railing, short posts in the middle of a stone railing, long stones laid across, wide flagstones fitted across those to make the deck, long yoke stones laid on the posts to support the cross-stones, the stone post itself, large long foundation stones at the base, and the abutments at either end.

Among old literary works the notes pick a poem by Choi Gyeong-chang, titled in the notes “At Murunggye.” Steep rock, it says, barely lets a lonely path through; white cloud has for a thousand years hidden a trace of the immortals; before the bridge and behind it there is no one to ask the way, and falling leaves and a cold current run in every valley. From this the writer takes it that the meaning of a bridge could also be invoked in dark images: parting, resentment, disaster, peril, danger, and regret.

Salgoji Bridge, 1420 to 1483, and later repairs

Among surviving old bridges the notes name Salgoji Bridge, between Wangsimni and Ttukseom in Seongdong-gu. Work began in the second year of King Sejong, 1420, and was completed in the fourteenth year of King Seongjong, 1483. Those years stay in 1420 and 1483. By today’s eyes it looks low, without railings, and somewhat poor; in the Joseon period, the notes say, it was the longest bridge. It was a hub of traffic: crossing it led to a ferry path over the Han River, and then the way split into three. Its length is 75.75 meters, its width six meters, shabby from today’s point of view.

It is made in four rows across and twenty-two along, with the center about twenty centimeters higher in a curve. On independent foundations, stone posts were set, support stones were placed on them, long yoke stones were laid, and on those, slabs were laid in three rows. What is architecturally unusual, the notes say, is that among four piers the middle two were made some fifteen to forty centimeters lower, so that the weight of the bridge would tend inward, and stability would be sought that way.

In the Joseon period it was the longest bridge of its time. It was repaired in 1913; in the rains of the 1920s part of it washed away, and it was left for a time, then repaired and restored in 1971. Those years stay in 1913, the 1920s, and 1971. The meanings old Korean bridges held, the writer says, still matter, even when a bridge is now taken for granted as a finished building; the practical and the artistic sides of the structure itself are worth a close look, technically and artistically. One should ask what a bridge meant from Korea’s past onward, how technique developed to realize that meaning, and how present Korean bridge technique has grown from those old bridges and what significance it holds. The same Korean essay, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student essay on old Korean bridges, cloud and beam forms, and the meanings a bridge can hold.
2. Son Yeong-sik, 1992, on a distinctive indigenous form; Park Yeong-tae, 2019, and a Samguk Sagi record with the year 413 attached, left in that year; a 2002 Hallim Culture Press volume.
3. Salgoji Bridge, begun in 1420, completed in 1483, repaired in 1913, partly washed away in the 1920s, and restored in 1971, with those years left in place.

Last updated: 14 November 2026