Gyeongbokgung Palace

Five hundred buildings.

That was the size of Gyeongbokgung Palace in 1888. Not 500 rooms. Five hundred separate buildings, each with its own tiled roof, its own courtyard and its own path. The easiest way to picture it is a small walled town, where every road inside leads to one person.

Here is the second number. In 1945, only 40 old buildings were left inside the palace grounds.

The gap between 500 and 40 is the story.

Gyeongbokgung was built in 1395, under King Taejo, the king who founded the Joseon dynasty. Joseon was the royal dynasty that ruled Korea for about five centuries from 1392. The palace went up just after the new capital was established at Hanyang, the city now called Seoul. Its name was taken from an old poem, and it means the palace of great blessings.

Inside stood Geunjeongjeon Hall, where the king sat to hold court. Its roof rose in two tiers above a stone-paved courtyard, and two rows of small stone markers showed where the officials stood, each by rank. There was Gyeonghoeru Pavilion, the place for great banquets, built on a man-made island in the middle of a pond and reached by bridge. In the back garden, the small Hyangwonjeong Pavilion sat on another pond, where the royal family went out to enjoy the cool air. And there was Gwanghwamun Gate, facing south, finished in the same year as the palace.

Then in 1592, the Imjin War broke out, and the palace burned.

It burned almost completely. Researchers still argue over who set the fire, and no one has been able to settle it. Only one thing is clear. After that fire, the place that had held the palace of a whole dynasty became an empty field full of grass. Gwanghwamun Gate, the south gate that had led into the palace since 1395, was destroyed that same year.

The palace grounds lay like that for about 270 years.

It is worth pausing on that number. Those 270 years add up to about ten generations. A child born after the fire grew up, grew old and died, and then the grandchildren and great-grandchildren did the same, while the palace grounds stayed a field of grass. The people of Seoul in those years walked past the spot every day, knowing only that something very large had once stood there.

Only in 1865 did Queen Dowager Sinjeong order the palace rebuilt. She was then regent for King Gojong, which means she ran the affairs of the court in the king's place.

It was an enormous decision, because rebuilding meant making everything new, from the bare ground up. Gwanghwamun Gate was rebuilt that same year. So the south gate had been gone for more than 270 years, almost as long as the palace grounds lay under grass. The royal family moved back in 1868. And not until 1888 was the work considered finished, with all 500 buildings. Counted from the order, the rebuilding took 23 years. The royal family did not wait that long. They moved back just three years after the order, while many buildings were still unfinished.

But the palace had barely filled again when another era arrived.

During the years when Korea was under colonial rule, the palace was taken apart little by little. It was not one fire on one night, but one building at a time, year after year. When that period ended in 1945, a count found only 40 old buildings still standing.

From 500 down to 40.

Koreans did not give up, and they did not rush. In 1990, they began a restoration plan that would run for 20 years. When it ended in 2010, 89 buildings had been rebuilt, bringing the palace back to about 25 percent of its old size.

One quarter. After 20 years of work.

So they began a second plan: 90 more buildings, to be finished by 2045.

That means the people who signed that plan knew very well that most of them would not live to see it done. The carpenter carving a pillar today will retire before the last building goes up. The child running across the palace courtyard this morning will be grown up by the time the work is complete.

They keep working anyway.

So anyone stepping through Gwanghwamun Gate should keep one thing in mind. This is not a monument lying still. It is a building site that has been open for more than 30 years and will stay open for nearly 20 more. Deeper inside, there is sure to be a patch of ground fenced off with metal sheets, or a brand-new roof still smelling of fresh wood, standing beside a stone wall worn smooth.