Naju Hyanggyo is said to have been founded in 1398, the 7th year of King Taejo's reign, just a few years after the founding of the Joseon dynasty. A hyanggyo was a state-run local educational institution during the Joseon period, serving two functions at once: holding memorial rites for Confucius and other Confucian sages, and educating local scholars. The central building of Naju Hyanggyo, Daeseongjeon Hall, is a single-story structure with a hip-and-gable roof, five bays wide and four bays deep, built in a distinctive style that blends the jusimpo bracket system with elements of the igong bracket style.
What makes this Daeseongjeon Hall exceptional is its scale. It's the largest surviving Daeseongjeon hall among all the Confucian shrines still standing in Korea, and it's regarded — alongside the Munmyo Shrine and Sungkyunkwan's Daeseongjeon in Seoul, as well as the Daeseongjeon halls at Jangsu Hyanggyo and Gangneung Hyanggyo — as representing the architectural archetype for this entire category of building. The fact that a provincial hyanggyo building is ranked architecturally alongside the capital's highest educational institution reveals that Joseon-era Naju wasn't simply a minor regional town, but one of Honam's leading centers of scholarship and administration. After the Gabo Reforms introduced a new modern school system, the educational function of hyanggyo institutions disappeared nationwide — but the memorial-rite function at Naju Hyanggyo continues to this day.