Hamhung
— — a city the war erased and then drew again.
Not only on a wall.
“The second city of North Korea, on the Songchon River about 110 kilometres north of Wonsan, with a population of roughly 770,000. Old Hamheung was the retirement city of Yi Seong-gye, who founded the Joseon dynasty in 1392. The Korean War levelled almost all of it; what stands now is a planned reconstruction begun in 1955 with East German engineers. The port at Hungnam lies a few kilometres south. from the studio
Hamhung, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Hamhung is the capital of South Hamgyong Province and the second-largest city in North Korea, on the Songchon River about 110 kilometres north of Wonsan on the east coast. The population is roughly 770,000. The port at Hungnam, a few kilometres south, has been the region's industrial outlet since the Japanese colonial period. The city sits at the foot of the Hamgyong mountains, on a coastal plain that grows rice and the apples the surrounding province has long been known for.
Old Hamheung was the retirement city of Yi Seong-gye, who founded the Joseon dynasty in 1392 and returned here after abdicating in 1398. The Korean idiom Hamhung emissary — for a messenger who never returns — comes from his refusal to receive envoys sent by his son King Taejong. The city was almost entirely destroyed in the Korean War and rebuilt from 1955 under a planned reconstruction designed in part by East German engineers from the GDR's Deutsche Bauakademie.
The reconstructed city follows a Soviet-influenced grid laid out from 1955, with wide boulevards, monumental civic buildings, and apartment blocks faced in pale concrete and granite. Kim Il Sung Square sits at the centre; the Hamhung Grand Theatre, completed 1984, is one of the largest theatres in the country at roughly 12,000 square metres. Older fragments survive on the outskirts — the Kuchon Pavilion above the river, and the Tonghungsan ridge with its restored Sonbul Temple — but most of the city is one mid-century design.