Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies
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How it came to be
Seowon were private academies of the Joseon dynasty that combined a shrine to Confucian scholars with a school. The first, Sosu Seowon, was founded in 1542 by Ju Se-bung under the name Baegundong Seowon, on the site of a former Buddhist temple. It was renamed Sosu Seowon in 1550, when King Myeongjong gave it a hanging board, making it the first seowon with royal recognition.
The academies were sited near mountains and water, and their pavilion-style buildings were laid out to open onto the landscape. The nine inscribed seowon were built over about a century: Sosu in 1542, Namgye in 1552, Oksan in 1572, Dosan in 1574 (raised by the disciples of the scholar Yi Hwang, Toegye, four years after his death) and so on until Donam in 1634.
In the late 19th century the regent Heungseon Daewongun moved against the academies, and Sosu Seowon was one of 47 that survived his abolition of 1871. A first nomination in 2015 was withdrawn, and on 6 July 2019 the nine seowon were inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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