Damyang Juknokwon & Metasequoia Road

Character

Juknokwon opened in 2003 after Damyang County shaped a bamboo-covered hillside into a 160,000-square-metre public garden. Nearby, metasequoias planted along National Route 24 in the 1970s matured into a monumental avenue. Their shared green identity comes from two different cultivation histories and two different spatial forms

The bamboo garden works vertically and densely. Paths climb through tall culms on Seonginsan, with pavilions, cultural spaces and small clearings interrupting the enclosure. Metasequoia Road stretches along a level corridor where repeated trunks and long perspective create its monumental scale

The experience

Juknokwon rewards wandering. Its paths divide and reconnect across the hillside, so a visit can stay compact or expand through themed routes and adjoining cultural facilities. The bamboo canopy creates a strong sense of enclosure even though the garden sits immediately beside Damyang’s town center and river landscape

Metasequoia Road asks for a simpler kind of movement: continue along the avenue and let repetition do the work. The trees were planted as roadside infrastructure, and their maturity transformed an ordinary transport corridor into a destination where the original straight alignment remains visible

The two sites are close enough to combine but separate enough to plan independently. For a shorter visit, choose the spatial experience you want: layered bamboo paths or a long formal avenue

History

Damyang’s bamboo identity is much older than Juknokwon. Bamboo supported local craft and household production for generations, while modern industrial materials and cheaper imports weakened parts of that economy in the late twentieth century. The county’s later tourism strategy gave bamboo a new public role alongside its older material culture

Juknokwon was formed in May 2003 on the bamboo-covered Seonginsan hillside behind Damyang Hyanggyo. The project organized existing vegetation into paths, visitor facilities and cultural spaces, turning a locally familiar plant landscape into a formal public attraction

The metasequoia avenue followed another trajectory. Damyang planted roughly 1,300 young trees along about five kilometres of National Route 24 in 1972. As the trees matured, the road acquired an architectural quality created almost entirely by trunks, canopy and linear spacing. Korea Forest Service later selected the avenue among Korea’s beautiful roads, formalizing a scenic identity that had grown out of transport planting

Together the two places show how Damyang’s modern visitor landscape was built through vegetation already tied to work and infrastructure. Bamboo moved from material economy into a designed public garden; roadside trees gained value through decades of growth

Before you go

Treat Juknokwon and Metasequoia Road as separate stops. They have different seasonal hours and separate admission, and the physical experience is different enough that rushing both weakens the visit. Juknokwon suits a branching hillside walk; the avenue is easiest to understand as a long linear promenade