The exhibition, held by the National Taiwan Museum and entitled “Nostalgia and Modernity: Exhibition of Postwar Taiwanese Architectural Documents,” runs until July 5. On display are sketches, blueprints, pictures and models of several landmark structures, as well as various documentaries.
Two professors of architecture helped make the exhibition possible: Wang Chun-hsiung of Tamkang University, and Shyu Ming-song of Ming Chuan University. According to them, the works under display reflect the historical conditions in Taiwan in the 20 years or so following the end of World War II, and can be thought of collectively as belonging to the first generation of Taiwan’s postwar architecture.
In the initial stages of this period, there was a lack of architectural expertise on the island, they said. “During the colonial period, only Japanese were permitted to design buildings. Local Taiwanese could only be assistants or skilled workers,” Wang said in an interview May 1. This meant that following the end of the war, when the reins of power were transferred from the Japanese colonial rulers to the Nationalists from China, there was a shortage of experienced architects. “Taiwanese had ample experience in the actual construction of buildings, but they were not good at design.” The gap was filled with architects who completed their professional education just before the end of the war and started their practice afterwards.
The exhibition opens with a house designed by Wang Da-hong. Wang, son of a Chinese diplomat, was born in Beijing in 1918 and educated in Great Britain and the United States, where he followed German-American designer and Bauhaus master Walter Gropius. A year after moving to Taiwan in 1952, Wang built a house for his personal use in Taipei City. It “integrates the language of German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Chinese traditional building and garden style,” according to the museum’s brochure. Though torn down today, Wang’s house, considered the first representative modern building in Taiwan, inspired the work of many students at the time: in the aftermath of the war, they had no access to the latest architectural textbooks, and studied his design instead.
Many architects working then had backgrounds similar to Wang’s: born in China, trained in the West, eventually moving to Taiwan to work and live. This group of architects “practiced the modern styles they learned from the West on their new homeland in Taiwan, while at the same time their imagination was inspired by nostalgia for their cultural roots,” Wang said. In a sense their work continues the turn-of-the-century debate in China, which centered on the question of how to transform Chinese traditions while embracing modernity. Several buildings constructed on the campus of Tunghai University—one of the first schools in Taiwan to set up a department of architecture—fall into this category.
In the mid-1950s, as the country’s economic conditions started to improve, modern architectural design gradually began to replace the aesthetics of the island’s former colonizers. But the new rulers of the island often tried to impose their ideological visions on the architects, and one of the challenges for architects at the time was to find a compromise not only between tradition and modernity, but also between professionalism and ideological intervention.
The National Taiwan Science Center, designed by Lu Yu-jiun and completed in 1959, is representative of the time period. It demonstrates the kind of modernism that could still be achieved by an artist working under a ruling power eager to consolidate its political legitimacy. Located in the center of Taipei, the exterior of the building bears strong resemblance to the famous Tian Tan, or Altar of Heaven, in Beijing. Its interior, however, with its spiral stairs and rounded slopes on the second and third floors, and its descending veranda a few floors higher up, remind one of the Guggenheim in New York, the curators said.
Also included in the exhibition is a replica of the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Wang Da-hong won a competitive bid for the memorial project in 1965. For curator Shyu, the building represents the best possible outcome in a situation where compromises have to be made to meet political requirements. The architect designed a roof at the front entrance in the traditional style, but he lifted the eaves upwards and skywards, a remarkable departure from the stately form of traditional Chinese architectural design.
More instructive for architects today are perhaps the ingenious solutions the designers found in response to external constraints. They designed well-ventilated buildings, for instance, because of the hot local climate—air conditioners were unavailable at the time. They had to make do with less costly building materials due to budget limitations. They adjusted their designs to fit in with the construction regulations of their time.
One example of such a work is the Center for Baha’i Faith in Tainan City, designed in 1957 by Hechen Tsz, who fled to Taiwan in 1948 and devoted the rest of his life to architecture instruction. This center for a Persian religious sect was admired for its humble monumentality. The clay-brick enclosures are an answer to the demand on economy, but its arrangement creates a simple spatial variation with a serene atmosphere, Wang analyzed.
Local solutions to contemporary concerns can also be found in designs by Taiwan-born architects who received their professional education in Japan. The Music Hall of Tainan Theological College and Seminary, built by Lin Ching-feng, is one prominent example, as are two buildings designed by Chen Jen-ho for San-Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics in Kaohsiung City. Both Lin and Chen completed their studies at Waseda University—the only institute that would-be architects from Taiwan under colonial rule could attend—before the end of the war.
For many local architects and students today, Chen’s works are a new-found treasure. The San-Sin High School’s student center, completed in 1962, is highly esteemed for using original structural design and ordinary concrete to bring out the building’s full function without falling victim to low budget constraints.
Chen also designed a classroom building in 1963, which was dubbed the “wave building” for the shape of its floors. The lecterns in the building are located at the troughs of the waves, while the students sit towards its crests. The structure has an experimental feel seldom found in local buildings, and it has helped Chen win a unique position in the history of Taiwan architecture. But his works were neglected during his lifetime, and did not begin receiving attention until after his death in 1989.
A third group of buildings represented at the exhibition comprises those designed by foreign architects, either independently or in collaboration with local firms. Among some of the works on display are St. Christopher’s Church (1957) by American designer Anthony Stoner; Kung-Tung Technical Senior High School (1960) by Swiss architect Justus Dahinden; Cingliao Holy Cross Catholic Church in Tainan County (1961) by Pritzker Architecture Prize recipient Gottfried Bohm; and Sacred Heart High School (1967) by Kenzo Tange, another Pritzker laureate.
In describing the exhibit, curator Wang said that many practitioners today are ignorant of the work of the first generation of postwar architects. “In the last 10 years students in Taiwan have developed a keen interest in architecture, but the models they study in seminars were built mostly in western countries, in a western context,” Wang noted.
In some ways, Wang added, architects currently practicing in Taiwan are not as aware as their predecessors were of the importance of taking a building’s surrounding environment into consideration. “The exhibition should help reignite interest in the architecture of that period. It will help show that architecture should be the product of its social and cultural context, not merely that of the artist.”
Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw