K-OMPHALOS Collected Papers

Let Us Eat Together · Comprehensive Field-Study Report · The Sejong 700-Meter Cultural Landscape

Philosophy · Field Study · Policy Proposal

Chunhwa Lee, Architect: a calling I would not trade even for the presidency

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

This edition (v5) takes the collection written on June 18, 2026 in my capacity as Chair of the Commemoration Committee of the Jeonui-Yean Yi Clan Association Headquarters, revises it on Hangul Day, October 9, 2026, under the personal name of Chunhwa Lee, Architect, and binds it into one volume with Parts 7, 8, and 9 added. The places revised are noted in the "Record of Corrections" at the very end.

Preface ― One Path, Six Gates

This collection weaves six different documents into one. They differ in character, but all face the same path ― a path that starts from the 700 meters of Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, and widens along the Geum River to Gongju and Daejeon; that runs from the Tree of Love to the founding ancestor's resting place and then spreads out again into a whole region.

Part 1, "Let Us Eat Together," is the philosophy (a manifesto) that sets out the spirit of that path. Part 2, the "K-OMPHALOS Comprehensive Field-Study Report," is the record of testing that spirit at sites around the world. Part 3, "The 700-Meter Cultural Landscape of the Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone," is a policy proposal that carries that spirit and that testing over into the language of administration. Part 4, the "Geum River Yi Do Path Master Plan," is a concept for a waterway linking that path from Singwan-dong, Gongju, to Simjungmaewon in Sejong, and Part 5, "The Miracle of the Geum River," is a regional declaration that binds Sejong, Gongju, and Daejeon into one and opens the future. Part 6, "Walk First, Then Decide," is a declaration that starts from the "structure before judgment" that the Yeongam High School dormitory asks about, and moves on to the responsibility of the President and the state.

It starts from philosophy (why), tests it by field study (how), lands in policy (what), links the path by a master plan (how it is linked), declares the future in a regional report (where to), and asks for a decision in a proposal to the President (who). The six gates lead in the end to one path ― the path on which people go to meet people again.

Contents

Preface ― One Path, Six Gates

Part 1. Let Us Eat Together ― A Manifesto of Cinematic Architecture (Philosophy)

Part 2. K-OMPHALOS Comprehensive Field-Study Report ― From Delphi to Sejong (Record)

Part 3. The 700-Meter Cultural Landscape of the Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone ― A Policy Recommendation for the Commemoration of the Founding Ancestor Yi Do (Proposal)

Part 4. Geum River Yi Do Path Master Plan ― Rowing Again on the River Where the Oar Was Received (Concept)

Part 5. The Miracle of the Geum River ― A Report on the Spiritual-Cultural Region Linking Sejong, Gongju, and Daejeon (Declaration)

Part 6. Walk First, Then Decide ― The Structure Before Judgment and a Proposal to the President (Declaration)

Part 7. I Only Practiced Cinematic Architecture ― A Piece for Hangul Day 2026

Part 8. Summary of "On Peace in the East 2026" ― The Question of 1910, the Response of 2026

Part 9. Summary of the Study of "Gajeon Chunghyo, Sesu Ingyeong" ― The Layers of Fact and Tradition

2026 · Published by Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Part 1

Let Us Eat Together

Together at the Table — A Manifesto of Cinematic Architecture

A philosophical manifesto setting out the spirit of this path

Let Us Eat Together

Together at the Table

Let us walk together. Let us sit together. Let us eat together. · Walk Together. Sit Together. Share a Meal Together.

A Manifesto of Cinematic Architecture

The path on which people go to meet people again — The Road Back to One Another

Summary

In Brief

People, in the end, live in order to meet people. Yet in the age that is most connected, the distance between one person and another has grown greatest. What humanity has lost is not technology but relationship.

In the end, a person lives to meet another person. Yet in the most connected age, people have never been further apart. What humanity has lost is not technology, but relationship.

Cinematic Architecture is not a technique for putting up buildings. It is architecture that lets people meet people again, the work of linking space into relationship and relationship into community.

Cinematic architecture is not the craft of raising buildings. It is the architecture that brings people back to one another — joining space into relationship, and relationship into community.

The 700-meter path in Yucheon-ri, Sejong, runs from the Tree of Love to the founding ancestor's resting place. From birth to life, from life to the return — it is a path into which one person's life is compressed, and it is Cinematic Architecture realized on the ground.

The 700-meter path in Sejong runs from the Tree of Love to the ancestral resting place: from birth, through living, to return — a single life compressed into a road, and cinematic architecture realized upon the earth.

So we begin with the smallest thing. Walking together, sitting together, eating together. Peace begins there.

And so we begin with the smallest thing: to walk together, to sit together, to share a meal together. Peace begins there.

1. What Do People Live For

What Does a Person Live For

What do people live for? For money, for power, for a higher position? Humanity has repeated the same question for thousands of years.

What does a person live for? For money, for power, for a higher place? Humanity has repeated this question for thousands of years.

Yet the answer may not be as far away as we think. People, in the end, live in order to meet people. We are born to love someone, we live alongside someone, and we live to meet again, some day, someone who left before us.

Yet the answer may lie nearer than we think. In the end, a person lives to meet another person — born to love someone, living alongside someone, and one day living to meet again the one who left before us.

Humanity lives in the most connected age in history, yet the distance between one person and another is growing greatest. Technology has advanced, but relationship is degenerating. What humanity has lost is the ability to meet people, the ability to eat together.

We live in the most connected age in history, yet person and person have never been further apart. Technology has advanced, but relationship has withered. What humanity has lost is the ability to meet one another — the ability to share a meal.

2. People Who Cannot Eat Together

Those Who Cannot Share a Meal

There was a girl who was parted from her father at seventeen. War separated them. Up to the point, past ninety, at which she is putting her life in order, the girl has not been able to eat a single meal with the father she missed all her life.

A girl of seventeen was parted from her father. War tore them apart. Now past ninety, drawing her life to a close, she has still never once shared a meal with the father she longed for all her years.

Even in the middle of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union sat facing each other and talked. Why, then, can people who use the same language and share the same ancestors not sit down facing each other of their own accord? Why can people who use the same language not eat together?

Even at the height of the Cold War, Washington and Moscow sat down to talk. Why, then, can a people of one tongue and one ancestry not sit down with one another? Why can people who speak the same language not share a meal?

3. This Is Not Only Korea's Story

This Is Not Korea's Story Alone

Being unable to eat together is not something that happens only in Korea. Aging parents eat alone, and their children live far away. Neighbors do not know each other's names, and even those living in one house look only into their own screens. Division is merely the form in which that severance shows itself at its most extreme.

The inability to share a meal is not Korea's alone. Aging parents eat alone while their children live far away. Neighbors do not know each other's names; under one roof each stares into a separate screen. Division is only the most extreme face of that severance.

The Republic of Korea is a country that went through war and division, separated families and rapid industrialization, the breakup of community and a long tradition of ancestral rites, all within one generation. So we know severance, and we also know reunion. Precisely because we have been through that pain, we can offer these words: let us eat together.

Korea has known, within a single lifetime, war and division, separated families and rapid industrialization, the unraveling of community and the long tradition of honoring those who came before. And so we know severance, and we also know reunion. It is because we have known that grief that we can offer these words: let us share a meal together.

4. What Is Inside One Bowl of Rice

What a Single Bowl Holds

Eating together is not simply sharing a meal. When we sit at the same table, we share our stories. Before the table a family becomes a family, and memories that had scattered gather again.

To share a meal is never merely to share food. At one table we tell our stories. There a family becomes a family again, and scattered memory gathers back together.

In this way the meal becomes family, family becomes memory, and memory becomes time. The place where we eat together is the place where people's time gathers.

So a meal becomes family, family becomes memory, and memory becomes time. The shared table is where human time itself is gathered.

5. What Is Cinematic Architecture

What Is Cinematic Architecture

We are all the lead in a single film called our own life. No one is a bit player. A film does not have only one lead. Everyone who walks that path is the lead.

Each of us is the protagonist of our own life — one whole film. No one is a mere extra. In a film there is never only the lead; everyone who walks the path is the protagonist.

Ordinary architecture makes space. Cinematic Architecture makes relationship. Ordinary architecture leaves buildings behind. Cinematic Architecture leaves people behind. The purpose of architecture, therefore, is not the building. It is to let people meet people again.

Ordinary architecture makes space; cinematic architecture makes relationship. Ordinary architecture leaves behind buildings; cinematic architecture leaves behind people. The purpose of architecture, then, is not the building — it is to bring people back to one another.

6. The Roots of Cinematic Architecture ― From the Square Whale to Hyeonchang

The Roots — From the Square Whale to Hyeonchang

The seed was already planted in 2007, at the table where a small building for a power plant was being designed. At that time an architect drew a whale without a tail. A whale without a tail grows a tail of love only when it holds a dream.

Its seed was planted in 2007, in the design of a small building at a power station, where an architect drew a tailless whale. Only when the tailless whale holds a dream does a tail of love appear.

In 2009, at the table where the design of an educational facility was being reviewed, that idea gained a clear name: "Cinematic Architecture." Its beginning was a conscience that would not look away from children. People come before buildings, life comes before function, and conscience comes before design.

In 2009, in the review of a design for an educational facility, the thought took on a clear name: cinematic architecture. It began in the conscience of not turning away from a child — people before buildings, life before function, conscience before design.

Koreans have an old word that points to this spirit. It is hyeonchang (顯彰). If commemoration is the work of preserving the past, hyeonchang is a Korean Cinematic Architecture that calls forgotten people back and stands them in the present.

Koreans have an old word for this spirit: hyeonchang. If commemoration preserves the past, hyeonchang is Korea's own cinematic architecture — the art of calling the forgotten back into the present.

7. 700 Meters ― A Path into Which One Person's Life Is Compressed

700 Meters — A Life Compressed into a Path

From the Tree of Love to the founding ancestor's resting place, there is a single path. 700 meters, seventeen minutes on foot. But it is not a distance. It is a narrative into which one person's life is compressed.

From the Tree of Love to the founding ancestor's resting place runs a single path: 700 meters, some seventeen minutes on foot. Yet it is not a distance — it is one human life, compressed into a road.

The path begins at the Tree of Love (birth). In the middle a railway crossing cuts across it (life ― we stop, wait, and cross again). At the end of the path is the founding ancestor's resting place (the return). The Tree of Love is the future, the railway is the present, and the founding ancestor's resting place is the past. The 700 meters link past, present, and future within a single step.

The road begins at the Tree of Love (birth); midway a railway crossing cuts across (life — we stop, wait, and cross again); at its end lies the ancestor's resting place (return). The Tree of Love is the future, the railway the present, the resting place the past. Within 700 meters, past, present, and future are joined in a single stride.

The road to Santiago is too far and takes too long. But this path is seventeen minutes, 700 meters. So this path is not one family's path but the path of every human being. Let us walk together. Let us sit together. Let us eat together.

The Camino de Santiago is long and takes many days. This is 700 meters, about seventeen minutes — and so it is not one family's road but every human being's road. Walk together. Sit together. Share a meal together.

8. What Will We Remember as We Live

What Shall We Live Remembering

At the end of this path, at the founding ancestor's resting place, something happened. A site that had been carried on for a thousand years was damaged, and was restored, but disappeared again. Yet this is not a matter of earth and stone. It is a question of what a community will remember and what it will forget.

At the end of this path, a place kept for a thousand years was damaged, restored, then lost again. But this is not a matter of earth and stone. It is a question of what a community will remember and what it will let go.

While striving to set that site up again, the descendants discovered a bloodline they had forgotten through the long years of division. We were looking for a grave, but in fact we were discovering people we had forgotten. What we are trying to keep is not stone and earth but the ability of people to be connected with people again.

As they labored to rebuild it, the descendants discovered a kindred line they had forgotten through the long years of division. We thought we were searching for a resting place — but we were discovering the people we had forgotten. What we seek to protect is not stone and earth, but the capacity to be connected to one another again.

9. In the End, Starting from One's Own Family

In the End, It Begins at Home

There is one thing to which no people in the world, no religion, and no ideology can say "it is not allowed." It is a family eating together. And not every day, either. It is that one day in the year when the family gathers before its ancestors.

There is one thing no people, no religion, no ideology can forbid: a family sharing a meal. And not every day — but a single day each year, when kin gather before their ancestors.

Peace does not come from grand occasions. In the end, each person must begin from himself, from his own family. A family eating together is the smallest peace. And every great peace begins from the smallest peace.

Peace does not descend from high places. In the end, each of us must begin with our own family. A family sharing a meal is the smallest peace — and every great peace begins with the smallest one.

10. Why Can We Not Eat Together

Why Can We Not Share a Meal Together

Humanity does not fight because it does not know peace. It is only that, at some point, we became unable to see a person as a person. No state, no ideology, no religion can come before a person.

We do not fight because we are ignorant of peace. It is only that, at some moment, we ceased to see a person as a person. No nation, no ideology, no religion can come before a human being.

War is not first made by bullets. It begins when a person is not seen as a person. And when we call a person a person again, war begins to end. Cinematic Architecture is the work of making that place.

War is not first made by bullets. It begins when a person is no longer seen as a person — and when we call one another human again, war begins to end. Cinematic architecture is the making of that place.

11. Why Now

Why Now

We are connected more closely than at any other time, and yet we live farther apart than at any other time. Loneliness is now not one person's feeling but the illness of an age. That is why it is now. It is a time that needs not more technology but sitting face to face again, not bigger words but one shared meal.

We are connected more closely than ever, yet we live further apart than ever. Loneliness is no longer one person's feeling but the sickness of an age. And so the time is now — what we need is not more technology but to sit face to face again, not grand words but a single shared meal.

12. Closing Words

Closing

The 700-meter path is not a path to a grave. It is the path on which people go to meet people again. It is not the longest path in the Republic of Korea. But in that it is a path on which a person meets his roots, walks with his family, and links the past and the future, it may be the most human path.

The seven hundred meters is not a road to a tomb. It is the road back to one another. It is not the longest road in Korea — yet as the road where a person meets their roots, walks with family, and joins past to future, it may be the most human road of all.

What humanity has lost is not technology but relationship. And eating together is the most human proof that the relationship has been restored. Peace does not begin in grand places. It begins today, where we walk together, sit together, and eat together with the person beside us.

What humanity has lost is not technology, but relationship. To share a meal is the most human proof that the bond has been restored. Peace does not begin in great places — it begins today, where we walk, sit, and share a meal with the person beside us.

People, in the end, live in order to meet people.

In the end, a person lives to meet another person.

Let us walk together. Let us sit together. Let us eat together.

Walk together. Sit together. Share a meal together.

June 18, 2026

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Part 2

K-OMPHALOS Comprehensive Field-Study Report

Comprehensive Field-Study Report

A record of testing that spirit at sites around the world

K-OMPHALOS Comprehensive Field-Study Report

From Delphi to the Sejong 700 Meters ― From the Birth of the Concept to the Idea of a World Course

Comprehensive Field-Study Report on the K-OMPHALOS Project

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Contents

1. Overview of the Report ― Four Field Trips, One Path 3

2. First Trip · Greece (2022) ― The Birth of K-OMPHALOS 4

3. Second Trip · Egypt, Greece, Türkiye (2023) ― The Fruit, 『700M』 5

4. Third Trip · Microstates (2025) ― The Human Scale of Small Countries 6

5. Fourth Trip · Italy (2026) ― Gathering the Senses 7

6. Synthesis ― Arriving at the 700 Meters of Sejong 8

7. Conclusion and Recommendations 9

Attachment ― Summary of Itineraries by Trip 10

1. Overview of the Report ― Four Field Trips, One Path

This report brings together the course and results of four overseas field trips carried out between 2022 and 2026 for the conception of K-OMPHALOS and the 700-meter history and culture path in Sejong. The four trips headed for different regions, but they converge on a single question: ‘How is a path made that makes people human again?’

The starting point of the answer was Delphi in Greece. On that spot, called the navel of the world (Omphalos), the concept of K-OMPHALOS was born, and the trips that followed were a process of testing and refining that concept by two methods, ‘human scale’ and ‘the senses’. And all those roads finally lead to the 700 meters of Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, a single path running from the Tree of Love to the tomb of the founding ancestor.

Note on participants — The five companions on the 3rd and 4th trips were professional women in their fifties and sixties (a physician, a dentist, a pharmacist, an entrepreneur, and a professor) who came along without knowing the content of this project. To protect their privacy, this report refers to them anonymously as ‘co-researcher Geumhee Choi and 5 others’.

2. First Trip · Greece (2022.9.9~9.16) ― The Birth of K-OMPHALOS

The first trip was an eight-day tour of Greece, with Chunhwa Lee, Geumhee Choi, and Yueun Lee traveling together. It began at the Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion and continued to Santorini, Delphi, Meteora, Thermopylae, and Athens.

The Core ― The Omphalos of Delphi

The high point of this trip was Delphi. Before the stone that the ancient Greeks regarded as ‘the navel of the world (Omphalos)’, a question arose: how does a single place become the center of a civilization? A center is not determined by size. It becomes a center only when people walk toward it, ask there, and wait there. Here was born the concept of ‘K-OMPHALOS’ ― the navel of Korea, a place where a person stops for a moment and faces himself or herself.

Supporting Clues Read on the Road

• Thermopylae — The place of Leonidas and the 300. It impressed on me the meaning of ‘stopping and holding one's ground’.

• Syntagma Square — The square where the first constitution was proclaimed. The prototype of a public space where ‘decisions’ are made.

• Sounion and Meteora — A stopping at the edge of the sea; monasteries between heaven and earth. Places where a person slows down before the landscape.

3. Second Trip · Egypt, Greece, Türkiye (2023.1.21~2.2) ― The Fruit, 『700M』

The second trip was a great thirteen-day journey through civilizations (Chunhwa Lee, Geumhee Choi, and Yueun Lee traveling together). It passed through Istanbul (Hagia Sophia, Topkapı, the Bosphorus), Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Ephesus, and Bursa, reached Luxor and Cairo (the Pyramids of Giza) in Egypt, then crossed over again to Athens in Greece, and revisited Delphi on January 31.

In visiting Delphi again, the concept that had arisen on the first trip ripened. In the middle of a vast route where the civilizations of East and West cross, the intuition of the 700 meters became clear: ‘how does one small path hold a large story?’ As the fruit of this trip, the book 『700M: The Runway That Can Stop War』 (Geumhee Choi, Chunhwa Lee, Yueun Lee) came into the world.

4. Third Trip · Microstates (2025.4.14~4.25) ― The Human Scale of Small Countries

The third trip ran ten nights and twelve days, with co-researcher Geumhee Choi and 5 others traveling together. It set out from Zurich and returned by way of Liechtenstein, northern Italy (Como, Verona, Bologna, San Marino, Ravenna, Parma), southern France (Nice, Monaco, Èze, Antibes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Grasse), Provence (Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, the Verdon Gorge, Gordes, Avignon, Arles, Carcassonne), Andorra, and Spain (Montserrat, Barcelona).

Theme ― How a Small Country Holds Its People

The focus of this trip was ‘microstates (微小國)’ such as Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, and Andorra. Small countries hold people not by vast size but by human scale. A distance one can reach on foot, a village one can take in at a glance, a size at which people recognize one another ― this was a demonstrated case of the space that the 700-meter path aims for, one that is ‘deeper precisely because it is small’.

Sub-theme ― ‘What Moves a Korean Woman?’

The five companions were professional women in their fifties and sixties who did not know of this project. To observe what moved their hearts while they were unaware of the intention was a ‘living test’ for gauging whether the 700-meter path has the universality to reach ordinary visitors as well. In conclusion, what moved people was not grand ruins but the ‘moment of stopping’ created by light, distance, and pace.

5. Fourth Trip · Italy (2026.5.12~5.22) ― Gathering the Senses

The fourth trip ran eleven days, with the same companions as the third (Geumhee Choi and 5 others). Centered on Tuscany, Matera, and Amalfi and Positano, the purpose of this trip was not ‘how much one sees’ but ‘to gather light, distance, and emotion’.

Principles for Gathering the Senses

• Tuscany — The light of early morning and of dusk. One does not photograph right after getting out of the car; one first keeps silent for three minutes or more, feels the wind, the smell of the soil, and the birdsong, and then records. Not a landscape but ‘a device that slows the human pace’.

• Matera — Dusk and the blue hour. In silence one listens to the resonance of the caves and the layers of time. A place to feel ‘the human being before architecture’.

• Amalfi and Positano — Towns where the afternoon light flows along the stairs. One does not just take photographs and leave; one observes the smell of the sea, the warmth of the sunlight, and the pace at which people walk. ‘A space where the senses come alive again’.

Remark — The details of the fourth trip, to Italy, will be submitted worked into the related books and reports.

6. Synthesis ― Arriving at the 700 Meters of Sejong

Each of the four trips took on one function. And all of it gathers in the 700 meters of Jeonui-myeon, Sejong.

If Delphi gave the ‘why’, the microstates gave the ‘how small’, and Italy the ‘how to make it felt’. The 700 meters of Sejong realizes all three in one place. About 1.4 kilometers there and back from the Tree of Love to the tomb of the founding ancestor, this path, which can be likened to one person's whole life, has the same structure as any cultural-landscape path in the world (conformity to the terrain, a ritual route, succession across generations), while being condensed into the shortest and most human scale.

7. Conclusion and Recommendations

• Conclusion — The four overseas field trips confirmed on site that the 700-meter history and culture path can stand, beyond being the path of one family, as a ‘path of life’ universal to humankind.

• Recommendation 1 — Set out the principles gathered at Delphi (concept), the small states of Europe (scale), and Italy (the senses) as design guidelines for creating the 700 meters of Sejong.

• Recommendation 2 — Use this record of the field trips as an attachment to the materials for the preservation and globalization of Sejong City's 700-meter cultural landscape.

• Recommendation 3 — Complete the final version by supplementing the detailed itinerary and on-site photographs of the fourth trip, to Italy.

June 18, 2026

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Attachment ― Summary of Itineraries by Trip

First Trip (2022.9.9~9.16, Greece)

Sounion (Temple of Poseidon) → Santorini (Oia, Fira) → Delphi (Oracle of Apollo, the Omphalos) → Meteora (monasteries) → Thermopylae (Leonidas) → Athens (the Acropolis, Syntagma Square).

Second Trip (2023.1.21~2.2, Egypt, Greece, Türkiye / TK)

Istanbul (Hagia Sophia, Topkapı, the Bosphorus) → Cappadocia (Göreme, Derinkuyu) → Pamukkale (Hierapolis) → Ephesus (Library of Celsus) → Bursa → Hurghada → Luxor (Valley of the Kings, Karnak) → Cairo (Pyramids of Giza, the Egyptian Museum) → Athens → Delphi (1/31) → Meteora.

Third Trip (2025.4.14~4.25, Microstates / LX·LH)

Zurich → Liechtenstein → Como → Sirmione, Verona, Bologna, San Marino, Ravenna, Parma → Nice, Monaco, Èze, Antibes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Grasse → Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, the Verdon Gorge, Gordes, Avignon, Arles, Carcassonne → Andorra → Montserrat, Barcelona → (via Frankfurt) Incheon.

Fourth Trip (2026.5.12~5.22, Italy)

Tuscany → Matera → Amalfi, Positano. A sensory field trip following the principle of ‘gathering light, distance, and emotion’. The details will be submitted worked into the related books and reports.

Part 3

The 700-Meter Cultural Landscape of the Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone

Policy Proposal to Sejong City

A policy proposal that carries that spirit and that verification into the language of administration

Subject

A Policy Recommendation, for the Completion of

the “Basic Plan for Tourism Development of the Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone (2015)”,

on the Project to Commemorate the Founding Ancestor Yi Do (李棹) and on Creating Yi Do Simjungmaewon and the 700m

History and Culture Path

Contents

Key Diagram ― The Ethics of One Family, Carried Across a Thousand Years 3

1. Purpose of the Proposal 4

2. Background of the Proposal ― The Logic the 2015 Basic Plan Built and the Place It Left Empty 5

3. Content of the Proposal 6

Proposal 1. Making the Project to Commemorate the Founding Ancestor Yi Do a Policy Agenda Item 6

Proposal 2. Yi Do Simjungmaewon ― Linking the Museum Complex and the Cultural Community 6

Proposal 3. The K-OMPHALOS 700m Cultural Landscape Project 7

4. Implementation Plan ― An Integrated Four-Stage Implementation System 11

5. Expected Effects 12

6. Closing Remarks 12

Attachments ― Supporting Materials 13

Attachment 1. Historical Record of the Founding Ancestor Yi Do / Attachment 2. Original Text of the Joseon Family Motto / Attachment 3. Analysis of the 2015 Basic Plan 13

Attachment 4. Status of RAUL Rights / Attachment 5. Cultural Content Assets and the Basis for Globalization 14

[ Key Diagram ] The Ethics of One Family, Carried Across a Thousand Years

From 文 (the written word) to 行 (practice) ― in the 1,000 years since Goryeo, this family has never once let go of the two characters ‘忠孝 (loyalty and filial piety)’.

The diagram above is the spiritual backbone of this recommendation. The Goryeo family motto ‘全忠孝護家門’ was carried on in Joseon's ‘家傳忠孝世守仁敬’, and today it comes back to life in the practice of ‘RAUL (education at the family table)’. A place (場) where people experience, by walking, sitting, and eating together, the thousand-year ethics that have been handed down in writing ― that is Yi Do Simjungmaewon and the 700m history and culture path.

1. Purpose of the Proposal

First, we wish Sejong Special Self-Governing City unending progress, and we sincerely congratulate the Mayor on taking office and newly assuming the administration of the city.

This association is the clan association of the descendants of Yi Do (李棹), a meritorious subject of the founding of Goryeo and the founding ancestor of Jeonui (全義), and for more than 18 years it has preserved the historical records of the family on the principle of ‘正論直筆 (sound argument and straight writing)’. The purpose of this recommendation is not to ask for the private glorification of the clan association. Its intent is to fill the one place left empty by the “Basic Plan for Tourism Development of the Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone”, which your City already established in 2015, and so to help you ‘complete’ that plan in keeping with its original purpose.

2. Background of the Proposal ― The Logic the 2015 Basic Plan Built and the Place It Left Empty

The “Basic Plan for Tourism Development of the Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone” (2015. 11., 191 pages in all) was not a simple local tourism plan but a ‘proposal for a national project’, which itself set its purpose as being “proposed to and reflected in” the national-level “Plan for Wide-Area Tourism Development of the Chungcheong Confucian Culture Zone”. That plan built the following solid logic.

• Location — It defined Sejong City as “the nodal point of the Chungcheong region” and “the place where the cultures of four cities and provinces gather and disperse”, and found its historical depth in “the gateway of the Goryeo period”.

• Wide-area linkage — It presented as its core concept “the central axis of the Confucian culture belt running through Sejong, Chungnam, Daejeon, and Chungbuk”.

• Project types — It specified as project items the creation of tourist routes (themed paths, perimeter trails) and the building of storytelling and archives.

• Existing projects under way — It included the 167㎞ Happy City perimeter trail, the museum complex (the Museum of Urbanism and Architecture, the National Archives Museum, and others), and the consecration of the tomb precinct of General Kim Jong-seo (112,225㎡, 2015~2019, one of the 100 major tasks; long-term task No. 74).

All four ladders are in place ― location, belt, project types, and the route to becoming a national project ― and yet the one figure who is the origin of the place name ‘Jeonui’ is not on those ladders. This recommendation asks that this omission be corrected through due procedure.

3. The Proposals

Proposal 1. Placing the Commemoration of the Founding Ancestor Yi Do (李棹) on the Policy Agenda

It is handed down that the founding ancestor Yi Do, for helping an army of 50,000 cross the Geum River when King Taejo Wang Geon of Goryeo marched against Gyeon Hwon, was granted the name "Do" (棹, oar), was enrolled as Tonghap Samhan Samjung Daegwang Daesa Ikchan Gongsin (統合三韓三重大匡大師翊贊功臣, a meritorious subject of the unification of the Three Han), and was enfeoffed as Marquis of Jeonui (全義侯). Iseong Mountain Fortress (李城山城), where he and his descendants lived for generations, is now designated a local cultural property, and the Sinjeung Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam also records that it "lies to the north of Mt. Unju." The clan seat name "Jeonui (全義)" itself originates with him.

Here I would respectfully ask one thing. Your city already commemorates General Kim Jong-seo, the renowned minister of King Sejong's reign in Joseon, through a sanctuary project covering 112,225㎡. I deeply share the intent of making a figure of loyalty and integrity a spiritual asset of the nation and the city. I only ask that you also consider the following matter of standing (位格).

If a renowned minister of Joseon is the subject of a national sanctuary project, how much more so a founding meritorious subject who opened a state more than four centuries earlier? This is in no way meant to set the two figures against each other and rank them. Both are figures of loyalty and integrity whom this land holds. I ask only that the consistency of standing be set right: that "the policy threshold which a renowned minister of Joseon has crossed is one that a founding meritorious subject of Goryeo naturally crosses."

Request — In line with the precedent of the Kim Jong-seo sanctuary project (comprehensive maintenance master plan established in 2013 → sanctuary project → inclusion in the 100 key tasks), I ask that you consider establishing a comprehensive commemoration and maintenance plan for the area of the founding ancestor Yi Do's tomb and including it among the city's policy tasks.

Proposal 2. Yi Do Simjungmaewon (心中梅園) ― Connection with the Museum Complex and the Cultural Community

Yi Do Simjungmaewon is a "garden of practice" that translates the area of the founding ancestor's tomb into the language of contemporary architecture. It corresponds precisely to two lines of reasoning set out in the 2015 master plan.

• Connection with the museum complex — In relation to that plan's Museum of Urbanism and Architecture (exhibiting the historical spaces of cities and architecture) and National Archives Museum (exhibiting the history of administration and records), Yi Do Simjungmaewon can serve as an "on-site annex (分館)." What a museum shows by model, the garden realizes as a 1:1 space that can actually be walked. The archive of public records I have built up (the Record Room of Chunhwa Lee, Architect) responds directly to the item "building an archive."

• Connection with the cultural community — The concrete content of the "sense of bond as a cultural community" that the plan wrote down as its goal lies in the family precepts this family has handed down for a thousand years. In the Goryeo-era family precepts, "親疎且莫論 (do not weigh who is distant and who is near)" and "敦信 (warm harmony and good faith)" are the very spirit of concord in eating together.

In particular, the plan diagnosed the population of the new city by saying that "most of the population does not recognize the identity of the region" and that "students and parents with a high demand for cultural experience are flowing in in large numbers." The all-ages family-table experience (RAUL) at Yi Do Simjungmaewon answers this weakness and this demand at the same time.

Proposal 3. The K-OMPHALOS 700m Cultural Landscape Project ― A Pilot Model for Korea's Cultural Landscapes

Cultural heritage is not made of buildings alone. A "cultural landscape" is complete only when the paths people walked, the spaces where ancestors were honored, the village woods, the memory of the community, and the stories carried across generations exist together. Our country has achieved much in preserving palaces, temples and fortresses, but the recording and preservation of the "landscapes of everyday life" in which people actually lived is still lacking. The Jeonui-myeon area is a rare case in which these elements remain relatively intact, and it is therefore the best place to present a new model for preserving living heritage.

The 700m history and culture path (the Tree of Love → the railway → the founding ancestor's tomb) is the central axis of this cultural landscape and a pilot section (prototype) that first realizes a "unit experience at human scale," one that does not compete with the plan for the 167㎞ Haengbok City perimeter trail. The actual section consists of the following three segments and is about 1.4㎞ round trip.

Components of the cultural landscape — The founding ancestor's tomb precinct · Yeongsajae · the Tree of Love · the railway crossing · the surrounding woods and farmland. These must be understood not as individual cultural properties but as a single cultural landscape system.

[ Figure ] The K-OMPHALOS 700m history and culture path — the actual route from the Tree of Love to the tomb of the founding ancestor Yi Do (Source: prepared by Chunhwa Lee, Architect)

Your city has already adopted, in the Kim Jong-seo sanctuary project, "the 'General's Path' experience facility on the section from the entrance of Handari Village to Kim Jong-seo's tomb (1.7㎞)." The 700m history and culture path is shorter and more human in scale than that, and it follows the same structure of "tomb, storyboard, experience." You need only apply the "Founding Ancestor's Path" by the very reasoning on which the "General's Path" was approved. No new type of project needs to be created.

The Tree of Love and the Founding Ancestor's Path ― A Path That Matches One Person's Life

At the starting point of this path stands a single "Tree of Love." It is a sapling that a seventeen-year-old girl, knowing that the time given to her was not long, raised by watering it each time she went between her home in Bangbae-dong and the market, putting into it her longing and love for her father in the North. The girl looked for someone to care for the tree and entrusted it to an architect, and the tree was transplanted to the entrance of Yeongsajae at Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon and came to be called the "Tree of Love."

The 700 meters from that Tree of Love to the tomb of the founding ancestor Yi Do can be likened to one person's whole life. Life begins in love (the Tree of Love), crosses a time of pausing and waiting (the railway crossing), and at last returns to its roots (the founding ancestor's tomb). That is why this path is the "Founding Ancestor's Path" and at the same time the "Path of Life." To walk 700 meters together before deciding means to think as slowly as the length of one lifetime.

A Living Ritual Landscape ― The Essence of the Graveside Rite Is "Walking Together"

These 700 meters are a cultural landscape because they are not a relic preserved like a specimen but a "living path" that people still walk every year. In autumn the whole clan walks this path, climbs to the founding ancestor's tomb, and offers the autumn ancestral rite. The essence of the founding ancestor's graveside rite is not the form of the ceremony but the very process of walking together, sweating together, talking together and sharing food together. It is a rare case in which path, tomb and rite are not separated but form a single cultural landscape.

Comparison with the World's Cultural Landscapes ― The Universal Value of the 700m Path

The path is a core element of the world's cultural landscapes. In that it was formed along the natural terrain, is joined to the rites of a community, and has accumulated hundreds of years of memory, the 700m history and culture path shares the same structure as the world's representative cultural landscape paths.

These world cultural landscapes and the 700m path have three things in common. First, they are routes formed not in a straight line but along the terrain. Second, they are joined to community rites such as pilgrimage and ancestral rites. Third, they have been maintained across generations over hundreds to a thousand years. In particular, the 700m path shows a structure in which its flow was not broken even after the railway was laid and modern infrastructure and the traditional route coexist, and so it holds a value of "coexistence of the modern and the traditional" that is rare even among the comparison cases.

This comparison shows that the 700m cultural landscape, going beyond the path of one family, can stand as a "Path of Life" universal to humanity in the discussion of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) for a UNESCO Cultural Landscape. This request, however, does not put a grand inscription goal first. I ask that we begin step by step: first a survey of its value, then consideration of registration or designation as Sejong City local heritage or the like.

4. Implementation Plan ― An Integrated Four-Stage Framework

This request does not ask for a single decision. It asks for step-by-step implementation that moves "from the small to the large." The table below integrates the work of recording and preserving the cultural landscape and the route to the policy agenda into a single set of four stages.

Each stage stands on reasoning and precedent your city has already approved, and so keeps new policy decisions to a minimum. The visible results of Stage 1 become the grounds for Stage 2, Stage 2 becomes the justification for Stage 3, and Stage 3 becomes the track record for Stage 4. In this way one small path of one family expands into a pilot model for preserving Korea's living heritage and, further, into a cultural heritage of peace and community with which the Korean Peninsula and the world can sympathize.

5. Expected Effects

• Identity — It gives residents of the new city a narrative of belonging that connects them to "the oldest roots of this land (Goryeo)."

• Education — It opens a living place of character education where all ages experience, at the family table, the ethics of loyalty and filial piety, benevolence and reverence, handed down for a thousand years.

• Concord — Through the practice of "walking, sitting and eating together," it holds the narrative of recovery for kin in South and North and for separated families.

• Brand — By adding "the origin in Goryeo" and "the ethics of relationship" to the city's Joseon-era assets of loyalty and integrity, it binds a scattered list of figures into a single narrative of time.

• Tourism — When the cultural recovery above is achieved, tourism follows naturally as its result.

6. Closing

The 2015 master plan put tourism in its title, but what it said again and again between the lines was "connection": the connection of scattered resources, the connection of four cities and provinces, the connection of the new city's residents with the old land, and the recovery of a "sense of bond as a cultural community." The 700m history and culture path condenses that connection into a scale a person can walk in one breath; Yi Do Simjungmaewon becomes the stage on which that connection takes place as practice; and the commemoration of the founding ancestor Yi Do is the work of setting up the "root" from which all those connections start.

I respectfully ask for the Mayor's deep consideration and active review.

June 18, 2026

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Attachments ― Supporting Materials

Attachment 1. The Record of the Founding Ancestor Yi Do (李棹)

According to the Joseon Ssijok Tongbo (朝鮮氏族統譜) and local records, the founding ancestor Yi Do's original name was Chi (齒), and he worked as a boatman at the mouth of the Geum River. When King Taejo Wang Geon of Goryeo, during his campaign against Gyeon Hwon, could not cross the Geum River because of a flood, Chi and others mobilized several hundred boats and carried the army of 50,000 across. For that merit Wang Geon granted him the name "Do (棹)," enrolled him as Tonghap Samhan Samjung Daegwang Daesa Ikchan Gongsin, and enfeoffed him as Marquis of Jeonui (全義侯). Afterward the family lived for generations below Mt. Iseong (李城山) and took Jeonui as its clan seat. His seventh-generation descendant Yi Cheon (李仟) rose to distinction as a general in the reign of King Gojong of Goryeo, and that man's grandson, the son of Jawon (子), Munui-gong (文義公) Yi Eon-chung (李彦沖), was a renowned minister who served four kings: Chungnyeol, Chungseon, Chungsuk and Chunghye.

Sources — Joseon Ssijok Tongbo; Sinjeung Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam (entry on Iseong Mountain Fortress); Segye Ilbo, "Stories of Korean Surnames — the Jeonui Yi Clan" (January 24, 2012). Iseong Mountain Fortress is designated a local cultural property.

Attachment 2. Original Text of the Ancestral Family Precepts (祖先家訓) ― The Source of 全忠孝護家門

Below is a poem sent by the eighth-generation Munjang-gong (personal name 混, Yi Hon) to his nephew Munui-gong (personal name 彦冲, Yi Eon-chung). Since the Gapsul Mallyeok genealogy (1574), it has been printed each time the genealogy was revised, and it is the family precept that descendants have taken as a lesson to practice.

Source — 『全義李氏副正公派譜』, Volume 1, p. 3. Joining "全忠孝 (jeon chung hyo)" and "護家門 (ho ga mun)" yields the family creed of this request, "全忠孝護家門." The character "全" is read in two ways: as "wholly (完)" and as the 全 of the clan seat "全義."

Attachment 3. Analysis Reconstructing the Strategy of the "Sejong City Confucian Culture Zone Tourism Development Master Plan (2015)"

A separate analysis report (14 pages in all) supporting the grounds of this request is submitted together with it. That report analyzes, item by item, the 2015 master plan's reasoning on location, regional linkage, the perimeter trail, the museum complex, the Kim Jong-seo sanctuary project and branding, and sets out in detail the grounds for connecting them with the commemoration of the founding ancestor Yi Do, Yi Do Simjungmaewon, and the 700m history and culture path.

Attachment 4. Status of Rights in RAUL

The RAUL family-table education presented in this request as "the practice of the present" is not a vague slogan but an actual undertaking based on a trademark registered as follows.

• Mark — RAUL

• Registration number — No. 4120140046139

• Class of goods — Class 44

• Right holder — Geumhee Choi (cooperating right holder for this project)

RAUL is a cooperative undertaking that carries the ethics of loyalty and filial piety, benevolence and reverence, contained in this association's family precepts (全忠孝護家門·家傳忠孝世守仁敬) over to today's table and places of education and puts them into practice. In cooperation with the right holder, it is operated as the all-ages experience program of Yi Do Simjungmaewon and the 700m history and culture path.

Attachment 5. Cultural Content Assets and the Basis for Globalization

The 700m history and culture path and the narrative of the Tree of Love have already been set down in the following writings and studies, which form the basis for globalization and for UNESCO Cultural Landscape inscription.

• 『The Square Whale and the Black Eagle ― A Quiet Fable from Korea』 (Chunhwa Lee) ― A fable containing the origin of the Tree of Love.

• 『700M ― The Runway That Can Stop War』 (Geumhee Choi, Chunhwa Lee, Yueun Lee) ― A work that extends the 700m path into a runway of civilization and peace.

• 『RESETOM ― Fashion with Conscience』 (Geumhee Choi, Chunhwa Lee, Yueun Lee) ― A cultural declaration that links walking on the path to a "fashion of conscience."

• 『The Providence of Heaven and the Architectural Ethics of K-Omphalos』 ― An academic report for the restoration of the tomb, the recovery of family-table education, and inscription as UNESCO World Heritage (Cultural Landscape).

A cooperating researcher who holds the RAUL trademark and has lectured on fashion and culture at Chosun University for more than ten years is taking part in creating the 700m history and culture path, and if a study visit to the paths of Italy is added as its final journey, this path, as a "Path of Life" universal to humanity, can look ahead as far as inscription as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage (Cultural Landscape).

Attachment ― List of Project Participants

Below is the list of experts in each field who take part in the "K-OMPHALOS 700-Meter Cultural Landscape Project" through advice, research and cooperation. Please fill in the relevant boxes yourself.

Project name: K-OMPHALOS 700-Meter Cultural Landscape Project

Organizer: Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Date prepared: June 18, 2026

※ Consent to the collection and use of personal information — The personal information entered in this list (name, affiliation, contact details, etc.) is collected and used only for the purpose of operating the "K-OMPHALOS 700-Meter Cultural Landscape Project" and contacting its participants, and is destroyed once that purpose has been achieved. By entering your details and signing, you are deemed to have consented to the above collection and use.

Remarks — Examples of participant roles: general coordination, advisory committee member, research committee member, field survey, recording, translation, education, public relations, etc. If there are not enough boxes, please add a separate sheet.

Part 4

Master Plan for the Geum River Yi Do Path (李棹길)

On the River Where the Oar Was Given, Rowing Again

From Singwan-dong, Gongju, to the 700m cultural landscape of Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon, Sejong — experiencing the diplomatic strength of Goryeo, linked by the Geum River

Yi Do's River Road — From the Geum Estuary to the Founding Ancestor's Resting Place

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Contents

Preface ― A Thousand Years Held in One Waterway

1. Vision ― On the River Where the Oar (棹) Was Given, We Row Again

2. One Waterway, Two Directions ― To the World (the Diplomatic Strength of Goryeo) and To the Roots (the Founding Ancestor's Resting Place)

3. Structure of the Path ― From Baekje to Goryeo, and On to Today

4. Re-enacting the Diplomatic Strength of Goryeo ― the Geum River, Byeokrando, Arabia

5. Singwan-dong as the Point of Embarkation ― Connection with the Everyday Farming Site

6. Step-by-Step Implementation ― From the Small to the Large

7. A Model for People of the World to Experience the Diplomatic Strength of Goryeo

8. Closing

Preface ― A Thousand Years Held in One Waterway

This master plan tells of a single river. It is a path that starts from the bank of the Geum River at Singwan-dong, Gongju, in Chungcheongnam-do, and goes up the waterway to the 700m cultural landscape of Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon, Sejong. In distance it is half a day, but a thousand years of time flow within it.

On the south bank of the river stands Gongsanseong, fortress of the Baekje capital, and on the north bank lie the everyday farming land where people of today tend the soil, and the Geum River landing. If a Goryeo boat is launched from that landing, the Geum River leads on again to the West Sea, to Byeokrando, and to the sea of the Arabian merchants. If one goes up the same waterway, at its end is Jeonui-myeon, Sejong ― the resting place of the founding ancestor Yi Do (李棹), who opened Goryeo, and the 700m cultural landscape of Yi Do Simjungmaewon.

This path is therefore not a simple tourist course. It is a path of time running from Baekje to Goryeo and on to today, and a path where "the strength that went out to the world" and "the heart that returns to its roots" flow together on one waterway. This master plan sets out the spirit and structure of that path and the way to realize it step by step.

1. Vision ― On the River Where the Oar (棹) Was Given, We Row Again

The spiritual backbone of this path lies in the founding ancestor's name itself. Yi Do (李棹), founding ancestor of the Jeonui Yi clan, was originally a boatman at the mouth of the Geum River. When King Taejo Wang Geon of Goryeo, while campaigning against Gyeon Hwon, could not cross the Geum River because of a flood, Yi Do gathered several hundred boats and carried the army of 50,000 across, and for that merit he was granted the name "Do (棹, oar)" and enfeoffed as Marquis of Jeonui (全義侯). The starting point of this family's thousand-year narrative is precisely "boat, oar, waterway."

Launching a Goryeo boat from the Geum River bank at Singwan-dong is therefore not a prop for tourism. It is to launch again that scene of the founding of the state, and for a person to come face to face with his or her own roots on the river. On the river of the man who was given the oar, descendants and people of the world row again ― this is the one-line declaration of the Geum River Yi Do Path.

2. One Waterway, Two Directions ― To the World and To the Roots

The Geum River flows in two directions at once. One is "the way out to the world," going down the river to the West Sea, Byeokrando and Arabia. It symbolizes the openness and diplomatic strength that Goryeo possessed, and its standing in the world. The other is "the way back to the roots," going up the river to reach the founding ancestor's resting place. It symbolizes the heart of a person returning to his or her own source, family and community.

That is why the port of departure at Singwan-dong is not a simple starting point but a node where "to the world" and "to the roots" part and meet again. The strength to go out to the world comes in the end from the roots, and the heart that returns to the roots becomes in turn the courage to face the world ― here lies the most human message this path conveys.

3. The Structure of the Path ― From Baekje to Goryeo, and on to Today

This path is a ‘living cultural landscape’ in which three layers of time and three places overlap along the axis of the river. Baekje’s Gongsanseong Fortress, today’s everyday farming and point of embarkation, and the resting place of the Goryeo-era founding ancestor are threaded together by a single waterway.

This structure shares the same principle as the ethical axis of ‘Goryeo → Joseon → the present (RAUL)’ set out earlier, and as the ‘Tree of Love → railway → resting place of the founding ancestor’ structure of the 700 m cultural landscape of Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Sejong. The path of Gongju and the path of Sejong are joined naturally by one stream, the Geum River.

4. Re-enacting Goryeo’s Diplomatic Strength ― the Geum River, Byeongnando, Arabia

Through the international trading port of Byeongnando, Goryeo traded not only with Song China and Japan but also with merchants from distant Arabia, and it was in this period that the name ‘Corea’ became known to the world. Openness, exchange and diplomacy by way of rivers and ports were the very force that gave Goryeo its standing in the world. The Geum River, too, was a route of transport and diplomacy linking the interior with the West Sea, and the boat of the founding ancestor Yi Do changed history on that waterway.

The device that turns this abstract history into an experience one ‘walks and rides with the body’ is the yellow-sail boat. Yellow-sail boats already operate on the Yeongsan River in Naju, and they have shown that such a project stands well enough on an experience and demonstration over a fixed section alone, without navigating the whole length of the river. Just as Yeongsanpo is a case of restoring the culture of an inland river port, the Singwan-dong landing can become a base for an experience that combines the port culture of the Geum River with the narrative of Goryeo diplomacy. It is to be designed as a section-based experience around the embarkation point, without the burden of navigation.

5. Singwan-dong as the Point of Embarkation ― Connection with the Everyday Farming Site

This master plan does not compete with the “Singwan-dong, Gongju Everyday Farming R&D Demonstration Model,” which is being pursued separately. The two projects interlock as two layers with different roles. The everyday farming proposal takes charge of the quiet foundation ― lawful arrangement of the farmland, actual cultivation, and a community across generations ― and this master plan places on that foundation the higher narrative of ‘its meaning as a point of embarkation.’

Specifically, the everyday farming site becomes the first segment of the Yi Do Path through the following functions. The community table becomes the space for gathering, hospitality and shared meals before and after embarkation; the walking path and the fields become the approach route leading to the landing; and the living-culture data zone becomes the archive that accumulates the records of field visits, boardings and rites. In this way the farming proposal keeps intact its credibility for administrative and farmland review, while also gaining the standing of being the starting point of a larger cultural landscape.

Recommendation ― The body of the everyday farming proposal should be kept as it is; it is enough to add later only a link at the level of a single sentence, ‘this site has potential as a point of embarkation on the Geum River.’ The vision of world tourism is the charge of this master plan.

6. Phased Implementation ― From the Small to the Large

This project follows not one great decision but a phased implementation ‘from the small to the large,’ in which visible results become the justification for the next phase. This stands on the same logic as the four-phase implementation framework of the Sejong Simjungmaewon policy proposal.

7. A Model for People of the World to Experience Goryeo’s Diplomatic Strength

In the final phase this path expands into an experience model for people of the world. Visitors are welcomed with a shared meal at the Singwan-dong point of embarkation, board a Goryeo boat and take the oar, and on the river hear the stories of ‘the Goryeo that went out to the world’ and ‘the heart that returns to its roots.’ Going up the river and reaching Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, they walk the resting place of the founding ancestor and the 700 m cultural landscape and complete the path of one life.

This is a stage on which ‘Koreans at heart (心情的), more Korean than Koreans,’ and people of the world who love Korean culture all become the protagonists. Not by grand scale but by a human-scale experience of taking the oar and crossing the river, it lets them engrave Goryeo’s openness and diplomatic strength in the body. Tourism follows naturally, as a result, when this cultural depth is in place.

8. Closing Words

The Geum River Yi Do Path goes beyond the path of one family. At the place facing the capital of Baekje, on the river of the founding ancestor who received the oar, the people of today take the oar again and turn toward their roots and the world at once. One small point of embarkation joins two cities (Gongju and Sejong), and one waterway joins a thousand years of time.

This master plan is the first framework of that path. Taking the land of everyday farming as the point of embarkation, the Geum River as the path, and Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, as the arrival, it seeks to realize in phases the most human of cultural landscapes, one of ‘walking together, riding together and eating together.’

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Part 5

The Miracle of the Geum River

A Report on a Region of Spiritual Culture Joining Sejong, Gongju and Daejeon

From the Miracle of the Han River to the Miracle of the Geum River — the path of the Korean Peninsula, joined again by 棹 (the oar), chok, one heart, and the cutting of metal

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Overview of the Report

1. Why the Geum River ― After the Miracle of Industry, the Miracle of the Spirit

The Republic of Korea achieved the Miracle of the Han River. On ruins, in a single generation, it built an industrialization that astonished the world, and that miracle was a miracle of ‘material things’ and ‘technology.’ Yet in the most connected of ages, people have grown farthest from one another, and loneliness has become not one person’s feeling but the illness of an age. The miracle we must achieve next is not more technology but the recovery of the ‘spirit’ and the ‘relationships’ we have lost.

The river on which that miracle will happen is the Geum River. The Geum River held the capital of Baekje, it is the river of the founding ancestor Yi Do (李棹) who opened Goryeo, and today it is the stream of Chungcheong that threads Daejeon, Sejong and Gongju into one. As the Han River carried the miracle of industry, the Geum River can let the miracle of the spirit flow. This report names this ‘the Miracle of the Geum River’ and proposes Sejong as its center.

2. Three Cities, One Waterway ― 三市同心

The Book of Changes says: “When two people are of one heart, their sharpness cuts through metal (二人同心 其利斷金).” The three cities of the Geum River region each hold a different strength. Daejeon takes technology, Sejong politics, and Gongju the spirit. When these three join their hearts on one waterway (三市同心), they can together cut through the tasks of the age that no one city could cut through alone.

With technology alone one cannot know the direction; with politics alone one cannot win hearts; with the spirit alone one cannot change reality. Only when the three strengths become one heart on the Geum River does ‘cutting metal (斷金)’ ― cutting through the age and making a new path ― become possible.

3. The Spirit of the Geum River ― Three People of One Heart (三人同心)

It is said that Wang Geon, Taejo of Goryeo, in the days when he contended with Later Baekje, was twice captured in the Geum River area and twice came through the brink of death. Gyeon Hwon’s side pressed those around again and again, saying that ‘whoever captures Wang Geon and delivers him will be given a great reward.’ Yet the founding ancestor Yi Do, despite that reward and that pressure, released the captured Wang Geon both times. That decision, to send the enemy commander away alive rather than cut him down, later became the path that opened Goryeo.

Behind this decision there was one more person: Yi Do’s wife, Lady Hong of Jincheon. To give up the reward and the safety before one’s eyes and send the enemy away alive ― it is said that the wife’s chok (觸), which saw through to what that seemingly losing choice would later become, worked together with Yi Do’s act of release. If Yi Do’s resolute act (棹) carried Wang Geon’s life across, the wife’s chok (觸) set the direction of that act, and Wang Geon (行), receiving those two crossings, opened a country. The ‘heart that cuts through metal (二人同心)’ which the official histories placed only between sovereign and subject, this narrative widens, by adding a wife, into the union of three hearts (三人同心).

Only when three hearts joined as one (三人同心) was the work that cuts even metal (其利斷金) accomplished. This one heart ― the union of the resolute act that spared the enemy (棹), the insight that saw through to its direction (觸), and the accomplishment of the one who received and rose (行) ― is the spirit of the Geum River and the spine of this regional concept.

4. The Place of Sejong ― From the Center of Politics to the Center of Conscience

Sejong is the administrative center where national decision-making gathers. But only when the center of politics becomes the center of conscience does a city become a place of ‘one heart.’ In Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, there are Yi Do Simjungmaewon, the resting place of the Goryeo-era founding ancestor Yi Do, and the 700 m cultural landscape, so that in the very middle of the city of politics it holds a place of ‘roots and ethics.’

This report proposes that Sejong become the ‘hub of one heart’ of the Geum River region. When the city of decisions turns into a city of conscience, and the fast city into a city that stops and sits face to face, the Miracle of the Geum River gains its center. Opening in Sejong a regional forum that takes ethics and conscience as its agenda can be the first step.

5. The Place of Gongju ― Baekje, Goryeo, and the Point of Embarkation of the Geum River Yi Do Path

Gongju is a city of history that holds Gongsanseong Fortress, the capital of Baekje, and it is the spiritual point of embarkation where the river of Yi Do, founding ancestor of the Goryeo era, begins. On the south bank of the Geum River stands Gongsanseong Fortress (Baekje), and across from it, in Singwan-dong on the north bank, are today’s everyday farming site and the Geum River landing. The ‘Geum River Yi Do Path,’ on which a Goryeo boat (yellow-sail boat) is launched here and goes up the Geum River to the 700 m cultural landscape of Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, becomes the route of spiritual culture that joins the region.

Gongju’s everyday farming site, as the space for gathering, hospitality and shared meals before and after embarkation, becomes the first segment of the path, and, facing Gongsanseong Fortress, it gathers in one place the time that runs from Baekje to Goryeo and on again to today. The human-scale experience of ‘walking together, riding together and eating together’ sets out from here.

[ Map ] Singwan-dong, Gongju — starting point of the Geum River Yi Do Path

6. The Place of Daejeon ― Adding the Spirit to the City of Technology

Daejeon is the brain of the Republic of Korea’s science and technology, symbolized by the Daedeok research complex. But technology cannot set its own direction. For what, and for whom, shall technology be used ― it is the spirit that answers that question. In the Geum River region Daejeon takes ‘technology’ and Gongju takes ‘the spirit,’ and tool and direction meet on one waterway.

When the technology of the AI age gains a direction that ‘thinks of the Earth,’ and when data and records are used to preserve spiritual culture, Daejeon’s technology becomes the hands and the tools that make the Miracle of the Geum River possible. Daejeon of technology and Gongju of the spirit are joined by Sejong of politics.

7. The Geum River 100 Paths ― An Axis of Spiritual Culture Joining Three Cities

The Geum River 100 Paths is a path of spiritual culture that threads Daejeon, Sejong and Gongju into one. It is not a path of distance; it is a path that sets down on the ground the flow of inner change that runs from memory to prayer, from prayer to chok, and from chok to miracle. It embarks from Singwan-dong, Gongju, follows the Geum River to Yi Do Simjungmaewon in Jeonui-myeon, Sejong, and that flow meets the intellect of Daejeon and expands to the whole region.

On this path, experiences of spiritual culture are operated, such as an experience of the dress of Goryeo women (‘wearing chok’), meditations and prayers for each city, education at the family family table (the recovery of the family education of the Jeonui-Yean Yi clan), and content symbolizing Yi Do. It is a rare regional model in which path, river and city are not separated but form one living cultural landscape.

8. Implementation Concept ― From the Small to the Large

This report proposes not one great decision but a phased implementation in which visible results become the justification for the next phase. Each phase stands on the existing resources and policies of the three cities, and keeps new decisions to a minimum.

9. Closing Words ― Time to Make a Path Again

The Miracle of the Geum River does not come by taller buildings or faster technology. It comes from drawing people out of the river (棹), seeing through to the heart and raising it up (chok), joining hearts (one heart), and cutting through the age to make a new path (cutting metal). When Daejeon of technology, Sejong of politics and Gongju of the spirit join their hearts on one waterway, the next miracle of the Korean Peninsula begins on the Geum River.

The ‘heart that cuts through metal,’ which the official histories allowed only to sovereign and subject, we recover from the chok of Lady Hong of Jincheon. As what saved Goryeo was the resolute act that spared the enemy and the wife’s chok that saw through to its direction, what opens Korea’s future, too, will be the one heart in which technology and the spirit are joined. The Geum River 100 Paths is not merely a path; it is a declaration of recovery that a region steps out on together.

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Part 6

Walk First, Then Decide

The Structure Before Judgment ― A Proposal to the President

What the Yeongam High School dormitory asks · The 700-meter pause · From tragedy to participation

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Chapter 0. The Collapse Before Judgment ― What the Yeongam High School Dormitory Asks

The problem of the Republic of Korea does not lie in decisions having been wrong. It lies before that. It lies in the fact that, before a decision is made, the structure that stops judgment and asks again is already not working. The matter of the Yeongam High School dormitory shows that fact.

The heart of this matter is not that ‘a building collapsed.’ It is that the state, asked for verification, did not answer with data. The facts are as follows.

The danger was raised with data. But that data was not answered with data. The channels for asking after responsibility were closed one after another. This is ‘the collapse before judgment.’ What collapsed is not concrete but the state’s very structure of judgment, which stops, asks again and responds.

Why did no one stop? Why did no one say, ‘let us look again’? Speed outran judgment, responsibility was dispersed, and the request for verification went unanswered. This structure does not appear in education alone. It works in the same way in administration, in international relations, and in war. War, too, begins not because someone did wrong, but because no one could stop.

This chapter is not for blame. It is for memory, and it is the minimum standard for keeping the same structure from being repeated. So what is needed is not a better decision but a structure that can delay a decision. And the ethics of that structure were already shown once, in the flesh, by one family a thousand years ago.

Supplement. A Model from a Thousand Years Ago ― General Yi Cheon of the 7th Generation and 家責先行

In the days when Goryeo was contending with the Mongols, Yi Cheon (李阡), a 7th-generation descendant of the founder Yi Do, is said to have been a military commander of power and rank. Had he wished, he could have placed his eldest son (Daesaseong-gong) in a safe post or pulled him back to the rear. But he did not. On the contrary, it is said that he set his eldest son on the foremost front line.

What this scene left to the family was not the winning or losing of a battle but an ethic. It was that he did not shield the eldest son with privilege, but set him up as a symbol of responsibility and sacrifice. This is not the logic of "gahwa mansaseong (家和萬事成)," that all things are accomplished through harmony in the home. It is the philosophy of "gachaek seonhaeng (家責先行)," that the family's responsibility goes first.

It is said that, because the eldest son stood at the very front, the family and the clan deepened their ethical and spiritual bond all the more. And he left his descendants a symbol ― "The eldest son protects the community through sacrifice." To take the person who stood in the most protected place and set him first in the most dangerous place. That is the form of responsibility this family has remembered for a thousand years.

This narrative stands face to face with the Yeongam High School matter of the preceding chapter. If what Yeongam High School showed was the failure of a structure of response in which "the authority of the institution stood ahead of the lives of the students," the story of General Yi Cheon a thousand years ago is the exact opposite ― responsibility going first (先行), in which the one who could most have been protected was set at the very front. That is why the restoration of the Taesa-gong burial ground is not simply the recovery of terrain and landform, but the inheritance of "an ethical restoration that does not forget the sacrifice of the eldest son."

Chapter 1. A Proposal to the President ― Time Before Policy

To President Lee Jae-myung.

This proposal concerns a matter that comes before policy. It is a matter of time.

There is a person who was parted from his father at the age of seventeen. He could not meet his father again, but he did not give up his longing. He turned that longing into love and planted a tree. The tree grew, and the person passed the age of ninety. Yet in the end they never met.

This is not the story of one individual. It is the simplest and the most unresolved problem that division has produced. If one tries to explain it, it becomes a tragedy; if one leaves it as it is, it disappears.

The Republic of Korea is a country that has lived without having ended its war. For that reason it is also a country that has the standing to speak about war. War is not a problem of ideology; it is the problem of people becoming unable to meet people. So what is needed now is not a political agreement but a form in which people can meet.

At Simjungmaewon in Jeonui, Sejong City, there is a 700-meter path that runs from the Tree of Love to the founder's burial ground. This path is not an explanation but an experience. To walk this path together is an act of acknowledging each other's time before arguing over who is right.

The conflicts of the world are, in the end, the same problem. Wars repeat because decisions are made first, in a state where people have not met and have not understood. The Republic of Korea is the country that has lived through that structure the longest, and is therefore also a country that has the standing to end this problem. This proposal is not a new project; it is the minimum form needed to end a problem that already exists. I ask that it be reviewed.

Chapter 2. Why the Concrete Cooperation of the State Is Needed

This is not something that ends with the resolve of the President alone. For there is an event whose observance is already actually being prepared, and before it lie points where the concrete cooperation of the state is needed. Together with the clan, I intend to hold the founder's autumn ancestral rite in the fall of 2026 as a mountain rite along the 700-meter ritual route from the Tree of Love to the founder's burial ground. This event needs the cooperation of the state for the following reasons.

Therefore this work is not completed by the resolve of the President alone. The public officials who take charge of safety, the administration that opens the procedures, the relevant agencies that establish what happened, and the people who walk together ― only when each takes one step in his or her own place is the "Miracle of the Geum River" completed, not as words but as a scene. That scene, begun in Sejong, becomes the starting point for raising again the civilization of a great Korean.

Chapter 3. From Tragedy to Participation ― A Form That Opens to the World

This proposal begins on the Korean Peninsula but does not stay on the Korean Peninsula. Its starting point is a single scene ― the fact that a person who was parted from his father at the age of seventeen did not give up his longing even past the age of ninety, and left that time behind as a tree.

This scene is a tragedy. But if we stop here, it ends as a tragedy. When this scene is turned into a structure in which people walk together, the tragedy becomes a shared experience. That is why this space must become not a place of mourning but a place where people can walk together.

The next step is to turn this scene into a form in which the world can take part. The reason fashion was chosen as that form is clear. Fashion is the industry that gathers people most quickly, and the structure that conveys culture most directly to the senses. The reason Paris was chosen rather than New York is also clear. Paris is a city that moves the world not by power but by culture. Culture does not compel. It makes people take part.

In this way the space can be turned into a festival. With the tragedy not hidden but shown as it is, people gather, walk together, and stand before the same question. When this structure is complete, nationality, ideology, and political system all lose their meaning, at least for that moment. Only one thing remains: the person.

The reason this is possible is not that the Republic of Korea has done well, but that it bears the greatest wound of division. It is a structure made possible by bearing the greatest wound. That is why this scene begins on the Korean Peninsula but can extend to the world.

This piece runs from the story of an individual to the structure of the world, from tragedy to participation, from place to industry, from Korea to Paris, and on to the world. What is needed now is not explanation but actually making this scene.

June 18, 2026

Chunhwa Lee, Architect: a calling I would not trade even for the presidency

Written June 18, 2026 · Revised October 9, 2026

Part 7

I Have Only Practiced Cinematic Architecture

An essay written on Hangul Day, 2026

The words of the geomancer Park Gwang-seo and of his disciple are what I heard in person; they are not documentary records. The black eagle is not an actual bird but a symbol of Cinematic Architecture.

I am an architect. The work I have done is one thing. It is Cinematic Architecture.

Cinematic Architecture does not see a building as a single photograph. It sees it as the time in which a person passes through it. And it makes the most powerless person the protagonist of that time.

The protagonist of a dormitory is the student. The student eats, studies, and sleeps in that building. A sleeping person cannot protect himself. That is why a dormitory must be built to the measure of a sleeping child.

In 2009 I reviewed the design documents for the Yeongam High School dormitory. I opened the papers and first pictured the children who would sleep inside. And I asked. Have these columns and beams been verified by testing?

In 2010 the Architectural Safety Research Institute of Mokpo National University said that the reinforcement plan should be decided after the performance had been evaluated by testing. In August of this year the education office answered me. There are no materials showing that an experimental performance evaluation was carried out.

I did not set out to fight. Nor did I set out to bring anyone down. I only tried to confirm that the protagonist is safe through to the last scene of the film.

Seventeen years have passed. The question is unchanged. Has the house where those children sleep been verified?

In 1993 the Hankyoreh newspaper introduced the geomancer Mr. Park Gwang-seo. He is a man who spent thirty years traveling in search of auspicious sites. His motto was this. One must build up virtue while alive to be given a good grave site.

I heard these words from him. The good ground has its own rightful owner. The legend of a great Korean will be born. His disciple, Dr. Kang, a doctor of Korean medicine, told me the story of General Shin Sung-gyeom, who was born in Gokseong. He is the man who gave up his life in place of his king.

To this I add my own thought. It is something I arrived at by gathering the thoughts of a number of experts. Geom-i-bullu, hwa-i-bulchi (儉而不陋 華而不侈). Modest but not shabby, splendid but not extravagant. This is the grace of Baekje. I believe that those who know this grace lead the civilization of the world.

A good person comes before good ground. Architecture is the same. The person who sleeps inside comes before a good building.

Today is Hangul Day.

King Sejong made an alphabet for people who could not express their thoughts in writing. It was not an alphabet for the powerful. I believe the legend of a great Korean began there.

A legend is not made of large buildings or large words. It is made of the work of making an alphabet for people who cannot read, and of verifying a single column for a sleeping child. The person who carries such work through to the end is a great Korean. I believe we can make that legend again.

There are things passed on in writing, and there are things passed from mouth to ear and received by the heart. This is gujeon simsu (口傳心授). That is how I received the words of the geomancer Park Gwang-seo. Do not lie, do not harm the weak, admit it when you have done wrong. Such things are learned not from books but at the family table.

Now it is time to widen that table. It is not only for those born in Korea. It is a table where Koreans at heart, that is, the people of the world who have become Korean in their hearts, sit together as well. I believe that time is now.

In Sejong there is a 700-meter path. It is a path that runs from the Tree of Love, across the railway, up the ridge, and arrives at the place of the ancestors. At the end of that path a black eagle rises. Those who have walked the path know. That eagle is me.

The name of the king who made Hangul is Sejong, and the name of the city where that path lies is also Sejong.

Today, a black eagle rises over Sejong.

October 9, 2026, Hangul Day

Chunhwa Lee, Architect

Part 8

Summary of On Peace in the East 2026

By Chunhwa Lee, Geumhee Choi, and Yueun Lee ― The Question of 1910, the Response of 2026

In 1910, in Lüshun Prison, Ahn Jung-geun planned On Peace in the East in five parts and stopped at two. This book was written sitting beside that empty place. Its fifteen chapters run as follows.

Chapters 1–6. Setting out from Jeongnamjin in Jangheung, South Jeolla Province, the book follows the morning in Harbin, the courtroom in Lüshun, the baptismal name Thomas, the book written in prison, and the memory of Jangheung, which has held memorial rites for Ahn Jung-geun though not related to him by blood.

Chapters 7–11. The book returns to the story of the founder of the authors' family. It looks for the stories handed down in the official histories, and where they do not appear, it writes that they do not appear. It deals with the place where the rite first appears in the written sources, the design of the 700-meter path, the ritual of walking, sitting, and eating together, and a clan that opens its doors.

Chapters 12–15. The book widens from the dignity of Koreans to the dignity of human beings. It asks about war in the age of AI, in which judgment is automated, and before the unended war on the Korean Peninsula it says, "Let us at least eat."

This book makes one promise. What has been confirmed is written as confirmed, and what could not be confirmed is written as not confirmed.

Part 9

Summary of the Study on the Documentary Origins and Transmission of "Gajeon Chunghyo, Sesu Ingyeong"

Chunhwa Lee (Architect) ― Distinguishing the Layers of 15th-Century Contemporary Sources and Later Tradition

This is a study that examines, through the sources, from when the eight-character family motto of the Jeonui Yi clan, "Gajeon Chunghyo, Sesu Ingyeong (家傳忠孝 世守仁敬)" (loyalty and filial piety handed down in the family; benevolence and reverence kept through the generations), came to be handed down as the handwriting of King Sejong.

Facts that are confirmed. That in 1432 King Sejong raised Yi Jeong-gan in rank, bestowed on him a staff and armrest, and honored his filial conduct is confirmed by the Veritable Records of King Sejong.

What is not confirmed. The eight characters do not appear in that royal edict or in the records of the same period.

Later records. The earliest record that sets down the eight characters as the handwriting of King Sejong is reported, within the range confirmed so far, to be a genealogy of the late 16th century (comparison with the original is needed). Among officially compiled records, an entry of 1722 in the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat is the first.

Conclusion. It is not a matter of taking one side or the other, but of separating the layers. King Sejong's commendation is fact. That the eight characters are King Sejong's handwriting is tradition. Not mixing the two is the way to keep the worth of the family motto.

Record of Corrections (v4 2026.6.18 → v5 2026.10.9)

1. The name under which this is issued was changed from "Chair of the Commemoration Committee, Jeonui-Yean Yi Clan Association Headquarters" to Chunhwa Lee, Architect, as an individual. In the sender field, the title held at the time of writing was left in parentheses.

2. The jyl.cc address was removed. This is because the writings on that website no longer open.

3. Part 6, Chapter 0, ① was corrected to match the documents. The Mokpo National University review was not at the design stage but after completion (2010.8), and what the judgment (rendered 2011.2.23) recognized was the unusual situation in which several structural calculation documents existed.

4. The education office's reply of August 7, 2026 was added to Part 6, Chapter 0, ④.

5. "Daesa-gong burial ground" was unified as "Taesa-gong burial ground."

6. Part 7 (the full text of the Hangul Day essay), Part 8 (summary of On Peace in the East 2026), and Part 9 (summary of the study on "Gajeon Chunghyo, Sesu Ingyeong") were newly added.

7. The rest of the text is as it stood in the June 18, 2026 edition. This compilation does not assert that the building is dangerous now, and requests that the materials on which the safety judgment rests be confirmed.