Tong-In Craft Shop

The Store from Tong-In has traded in Insadong since 1924. The present building went up in 1973 to a design by the architect Kim Seok-jae. He was a disciple of Kim Chung-up, one of the founders of modern Korean architecture. Its form takes after the janggyeongho, the long-necked earthenware vessel of the Gaya and Silla periods. It has very few windows above the third floor so that daylight is kept away from the antique works inside. Seoul has designated the building a Future Heritage site. The shop describes its atmosphere as solemn and classical, in keeping with the role of Insadong as the cultural centre of the city. The store is a complex space in which antiquities and modern art coexist with contemporary craft. Its antique floors cover ceramics and old furniture as well as paintings. The craft side ranges across ceramic and metal work. Textiles hang beside lacquerware inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Hanji paper and woodcraft have their own sections, as does minhwa folk painting. The Tong-In Gallery shows contemporary work in the same building. It sells online as well as from the Insadong building, and enquiries about individual pieces go through the inquiry form of the store. It remains one of the older addresses on a street now lined with galleries and craft shops, and the building itself is part of what visitors come to see.