Chosun Hotel

For the current hotel on the same site, see Westin Chosun Seoul.

Chosun Hotel
조선호텔
The original Chosun Hotel, photographed during the Japanese colonial period
Former names	Joseon Railway Hotel (Chōsen Tetsudō Hoteru, 1914); Chōsen Hotel (1914–1948)
General information
Location	Sogong-dong, Jung District
Town or city	Keijō (Seoul)
Country	Japanese Korea (later South Korea)
Coordinates	37°33′53″N 126°58′54″E Fatal error: The format of the coordinate could not be determined. Parsing failed.
Opened	10 October 1914
Owner	South Manchuria Railway Co. (1914–1920s); Railway Bureau, Government-General of Chōsen (1920s–1945)
Technical details
Floor count	4 above ground, 1 below
Design and construction
Architect	Georg de Lalande

The Chosun Hotel (조선호텔; 朝鮮ホテル; also written Chosen Hotel or Joseon Hotel) was a luxury railway hotel in central Seoul that operated from 1914 to 1968. Built by the Japanese colonial authorities on the partially demolished grounds of the Hwangudan altar complex, it was for several decades the most prestigious Western-style hotel on the Korean Peninsula and the first in the country to operate a passenger elevator, a French restaurant, and a buffet service. Following the building's demolition between 1968 and 1970 it was replaced on the same site by the high-rise Westin Chosun Seoul, which preserves the Hwangungu octagonal shrine in its garden.

The hotel had its origins in the rapid growth of railway-borne traffic following completion of the Gyeongbu Line in 1905 and the Gyeongui Line in 1906, which produced a demand for Western-standard accommodation in Seoul. In 1913 the colonial administration cleared the Hwangudan complex, an open-air altar of heaven erected in 1897 by Emperor Gojong of Korea to mark the founding of the Korean Empire, retaining only the three-storey octagonal Hwangungu shrine and three stone drums. Construction began in March 1913 under the Railway Bureau of the Government-General of Chōsen, with overall management delegated to the South Manchuria Railway Company, and the building was completed on 20 September 1914 and opened on 10 October. The principal designer was Georg de Lalande a Prussian architect resident in Tokyo who had previously designed several major government buildings in Imperial Japan and Korea; de Lalande died of pneumonia in August 1914 during a visit to Korea, before the hotel opened, and his design for the Government-General building in Seoul was completed by Nomura Ichirō.

The Chosun Hotel seen from its rear garden

As completed, the Chosun was a four-storey building of mixed Western-Neorenaissance and Korean elements, with sixty-nine rooms, capacity for one hundred and six guests, and a built area of around 583 pyeong (1,930 m²) on a 6,700-pyeong lot; its budget was 843,000 yen. Contemporary press referred to it as the "Ritz of the Far East", and from its opening it served as the principal venue in Keijō for state receptions, foreign diplomatic functions and visits by Japanese imperial and European royalty; Suite 201, also known as the Imperial Suite, was reserved for such guests. After the Japanese surrender in 1945 the hotel was requisitioned by the United States Army Military Government and served as the residence of General John R. Hodge; the Korean independence leader Seo Jae-pil occupied Suite 201 for nearly a year from July 1947, and the building was briefly held by the Korean People's Army during the Korean War in 1950. President Syngman Rhee formally changed the English name from "Chōsen" to "Chosun" shortly after independence to remove the Japanese pronunciation.

By the mid-1960s the original building had become too small for the demand placed on it, and in 1967 the co-owners Tourist Service Inc. and American Airlines began a complete rebuilding; the colonial hotel was demolished between 1968 and 1969, and an eighteen-storey, 500-room replacement designed by William B. Tabler reopened on the same site in March 1970 at a reported cost of around US$11 million. The new tower took the Westin brand in 1981 and continues to operate as the Westin Chosun Seoul; the Hwangungu shrine and three stone drums survive in the hotel garden, where they are designated Treasure No. 157.

External links

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