This Building Tells a Story: Gyonam YMCA

Name: Gyonam YMCA

Builder: American Missionary William Blair

Building Date: 1914

Materials: Brick & Tile

Location: 22, Namseong-ro, Jung-gu, Daegu

Photo by Colonial Korea

History isn’t always tangible - when the people involved pass away, stories stop being told, and sacrifices are taken for granted - what is left to remind us that these events happened? While monuments commemorate the existence of a historical event, I think it’s more important to experience the actual locations and buildings where these events took place.

The existence of the Gyonam YMCA perfectly encapsulates this idea. Built by American missionaries in the 1910s, this unassuming two-story red brick building with a plain black tile roof in Daegu, was an instrumental part in the the March 1st movement, debatably the most important event in Korean history. Originally used for American missionaries to spread Christian messages and lessons, the Gfyonam YMCA eventually ascended its original purpose. During the planning of the March 1st movement, many secret meetings were held in churches and religious buildings, where Christians supported Korean independence. Of these buildings, the Gyonam YMCA played an outstanding role. Without the leaders of the Gyonam YMCA, Man-jip Lee and Tae-ryun Kim, the March 1st movement may have never made it outside of Seoul and effectively rendered it a failure. On March 8th, the leaders brought copies of the South Korean Declaration of Independence from Seoul to Daegu, making copies, spreading the word, and announcing it publicly, beginning the protests in Daegu which contributed to the eventual achievement of Korean independence.

My generation lives in a South Korea that is economically and scientifically prodigious, leading the global semiconductor industry and having worldwide cultural influences through Kpop. But I know it wasn’t always this way - just a few decades ago, South Korea was a desperately poor agricultural country with little to show for its long history, and that’s almost impossible for me to imagine. But the existence of buildings like the Gyonam YMCA live on as monuments that prove the existence of struggle, and I can see its curved rooftop almost grinning, proud of how its country is doing today.

References:

• https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/svc/contents/contentsView.do?vcontsId=14644

• https://www.emieyes.com/all-posts/the-ultimate-guide-to-daegus-modern-history-street

• https://colonialkorea.com/2015/03/28/daegu-part1/