Taiwan Today

Northeastern Taiwan’s Yilan County is the canvas for Huang Sheng-yuan’s culturally and environmentally connected architecture.

Taiwan architect Huang Sheng-yuan (黃聲遠‬) built his career on his own terms. So it was fitting that he received the National Award for Arts in a structure he designed.

Huang accepted the country’s foremost honor for artistic achievement from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the headquarters of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in April 2018. Opened three years previously, the stylish building in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District was formerly a Central Radio Station facility. Huang and his firm Fieldoffice Architects transformed the abandoned site into a local landmark that embodies the creativity and grace of the internationally renowned modern dance troupe.

Located on 1.5 hectares of sloping land, Cloud Gate Theater comprises a performance venue as well as archival, exhibition, office and rehearsal space. Up close, it is a striking, light-filled structure held aloft by multistory glass walls. From afar, a mesmerizing curved copper roof allows it to blend seamlessly into the surrounding scenery. This dichotomy of imposing yet invisible, fascinating while functional, is Huang’s trademark.

“What’s really pleasing is that after our intervention, it still feels as though the natural environment is untouched,” Huang said. A building should never be defined by its size or shape, but rather by its relationship with the landscape, he added.

Yale to Yilan

In architecture and life, harmony has been Huang’s preeminent pursuit. This atypical approach has earned the 56-year-old numerous accolades. A month after receiving the National Award for Arts, he was presented with the Presidential Innovation Award from Tsai for this commitment to conveying through his buildings the natural and cultural context of their environment.

Huang’s quest for balance saw him eschew the traditional career path for a gifted young architect. In 1994, he started his own practice amid literal rice paddies in Yilan, far from Taiwan’s cosmopolitan cities. Fieldoffice has since grown into one of the leading firms in the nation, though prior to Cloud Gate Theater it had not developed a single building outside of the northeastern county it calls home.

This commitment to Yilan is all the more remarkable for the fact that Huang is not a native. Born in Taipei City, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture at Tunghai University in central Taiwan’s Taichung City and Yale University in the U.S., respectively. He later worked at Eric Owen Moss Architects in Los Angeles and taught at North Carolina State University before returning to Taiwan in 1993.

The decision to base his practice in Yilan was inspired by the county’s sweeping natural vistas and the local government’s openness to new architectural ideas. Huang saw in it a place where he could champion his vision of environmentally connected design rooted in local history, culture and lifestyles.

Huang’s firm has completed more than 50 projects in Yilan, the majority of them for public sector organizations. One of the most well-known is Luodong Cultural Working House. The county government-administered leisure and sports facility is designed to reflect the area’s long association with forestry, once the major industry in Luodong. The building resembles a vast woodworking shed, with large open spaces around the substructures under its commanding canopy roof. It won first prize in the 2014 Far Eastern Architectural Design Award, among the most prestigious honors of its kind in Taiwan. Fieldoffice received this prize again in 2017 for Cloud Gate Theater.

Luodong Cultural Working House underscores Huang’s passion for creating inviting yet ambiguous multipurpose public facilities. This is also highlighted by the steel canopy structure erected by Fieldoffice on the plaza in front of Yilan’s main train station. “It’s an undefined space,” he said. “Its flexibility is maintained by the absence of any reference to a specific function.”

Collaborative Approach

According to Wang Chun-hsiung (王俊雄‬), an associate professor of architecture at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Huang does not rigidly adhere to design theories or obsessively pursue technical perfection. “He’s neither an unassailable ‘master’ nor an artist-architect devoted to style over substance,” he said. “His aim is to collaborate with the talents at Fieldoffice in exploring how this discipline can foster equilibrium between people and their environment.”

Through the firm’s works over the decades, “Huang has in essence been writing the ‘Book of Yilan,’” Wang said. This is most evident in a large-scale urban preservation and enhancement venture called Vascular Bundle, he added.

The project comprises the development of three separate walking trails in Yilan City. Each spans outward from a Fieldoffice structure and involves unearthing historical waterways and constructing paths and pedestrian bridges.

Two of the trails have been completed. The first extends in two directions totaling around 560 meters from the Yilan County Social Welfare Center. On one side of the building, the trail travels northwest, connecting to the Yilan River through a series of footbridges and riverside walkways. On the other, it stretches southeast to the old downtown quarters of Yilan, which date to the 19th century.

The second section runs 1.4 kilometers from the train station plaza structure through green spaces, public facilities, uncovered waterways and revamped sites such as a former Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) brewery near the Yilan River. The third trail, still under development, is set to spread across the southern part of the city, connecting a number of local schools.

Vascular Bundle has involved years of environmental surveys, field studies, historical research and extensive discussions with local communities. Fieldoffice’s enthusiasm for this sort of project reveals Huang’s distinctive perspective on the role of an architect, Wang said. “He’s concerned with the regeneration of the area as a whole, rather than just the construction of an individual building.”

According to the professor, Huang approaches each development site as though it were a fully stocked artisan’s workshop, with all the materials necessary to complete the job located on the plot. “This use of existing resources based on a detailed understanding of local culture is the core of his creative process.”

Growing Reputation

Accurately conveying cultural heritage requires extensive communication and coordination with government units and community organizations. When tensions arise, Huang’s approach is to seek common ground and mutual understanding. “It’s a process of persuasion and compromise in which we try to guide the parties toward a positive result,” he said.

Achieving buy-in has become easier for Fieldoffice as its reputation has grown. With its roots firmly embedded in Yilan, the firm has earned the respect of officials and the public, and in turn is entrusted with projects of social and historical significance. Among its recently completed works is the county government’s Cherry Orchard Cemetery. At the highest point on the site is the Hill of Weishui, a breathtaking viewing platform in memory of Yilan native Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水), a doctor and social activist during the Japanese colonial era. Fieldoffice received the first prize at last year’s Taiwan Architecture Award for Hill of Weishui.

Over the past few years, word of Huang and his firm’s distinctive approach has spread beyond Taiwan’s shores. In 2017, he received the Yosizaka Takamasa Award at Waseda University in Tokyo, with the jury praising his “practical, sustainable, communicative design activities in Yilan.” Huang and Fieldoffice are the first non-Japanese winner of the biennial prize launched in 2011 to commemorate noted architect and mountaineer Yosizaka.

This honor came just two years after the firm was invited to stage its first overseas solo exhibition. Held in Tokyo, that event was followed in 2016 and 2017 by five European shows in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland and Poland. From May to November last year, Fieldoffice was the focus of the Taiwan pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition, part of the Venice Biennale. The display, themed “Living with Sky, Water and Mountain: Making Places in Yilan,” featured documentaries, images and models of Cherry Orchard Cemetery, Luodong Cultural Working House and Vascular Bundle, among other projects. “The architectural issues and problems we highlight at our exhibitions aren’t unique to Taiwan, but common to many locations around the world,” Huang said. “Presenting our concerns about development practices in Taiwan honestly and openly promotes reciprocity and helps build real friendships.”

Following the success of its first venture outside of Yilan, Fieldoffice is spreading its wings once again, working on two buildings set to be constructed on the main campus of National Tsing Hua University in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu City. These will house the Institute of Taiwan Literature and a museum for historical artifacts. True to form, Fieldoffice’s design draws inspiration from signature aspects of regional cultural heritage, with the museum project incorporating a house with a traditional three-sided courtyard.

For Huang, the field of architecture is multidisciplinary, requiring detailed study of anthropology, ecology, economics, energy, geology, geography and politics. “Only by taking all of these areas into consideration can an architect truly craft a lasting relationship between a building and the people who use it.”

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw