Andong Mayor Kwon Ki-chang Visits Japan... Benchmarking Traditional House 'Kyomachia' Regeneration Project

A delegation led by Andong Mayor Kwon Ki-chang, visiting Japanese exchange cities, visited Japan from the 26th and benchmarked the restoration project of Kyoto City's traditional houses, 'Kyomachiya.'

On that day, Mayor Kwon and his party met with Kyoto Mayor Kadokawa Daisaku and held a meeting related to world historic cities. Afterwards, guided by officials in charge of cultural heritage and MICE strategy in Kyoto City, they toured the preservation and utilization cases of the traditional houses 'Kyomachiya.'

Kwon Ki-chang, Mayor of Andong (center in the photo), is listening to a case of remodeling a traditional Kyoto machiya house in Japan into a hotel.

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Andong City and Kyoto City share the commonality of being historic cities preserving traditional heritage, and each preserves and inherits old buildings called 'Hanok' and 'Kyomachiya,' respectively. In particular, they plan to incorporate various urban regeneration cases from Kyoto City to promote new development momentum for the tourist city of Andong.

Kyoto City is lined with traditional houses called 'Kyomachiya,' which are symbolic of the historic city of Kyoto. Utilizing the charm of Kyomachiya, which has a tradition of over 100 years, they are diversely used as art galleries, hotels, offices, guesthouses, cafes, and more.

Currently, about 40,146 Kyomachiya remain in Kyoto. Kyoto City promotes various projects to preserve the value of tradition and restore Kyoto's identity. Starting with the enactment of ordinances for the preservation and inheritance of Kyomachiya, they implement repair subsidy systems, remodeling model promotions, brokerage of Kyomachiya transactions, preservation and regeneration support, fund establishment, tourism planning, and various preservation and utilization measures.

Shikibu, head of Kyoto City's Urban Regeneration Division, said, "To preserve and sustain the historic living environment, we continue to promote the Kyomachiya restoration and reuse project through ordinance enactment, prior consultation with owners, and integrated management using expert groups."

In response, Andong Mayor Kwon Ki-chang said, "The increasing number of vacant Hanok in Andong and the northern Gyeongbuk region due to aging and population decline is analogous to the disappearance of Kyomachiya in Kyoto City, and solving and recovering this issue is a common task for both cities." He added, "We intend to utilize key cases from Kyoto City, which is rationally preserving and inheriting through urban regeneration and utilization measures such as living culture education centers, in Andong's traditional house projects to create new urban development momentum."

Andong City is preparing for future tourism by producing a storytelling book linking 100 traditional houses in the northern Gyeongbuk region, promoting a traditional house manager project for the specialization of the traditional house industry, and a traditional Hanok branding project, utilizing tradition.

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