Almost a quarter-century later, Han was back in the news when a retrospective exhibition honoring Taiwan's first architect to incorporate modern design with southern Fujianese style opened June 20 to run through July 22 at the National Museum of History in Taipei.
Its title, "Mild but Tasteful--A Dialogue with Han Pao-teh," might refer to Han's art, or it might refer to the man himself, since "mild" perfectly describes his personality and "tasteful" his persistence in finishing his works right down to the last detail.
Han's mildness can be seen, for example, in his humility: his lack of bragging about his achievements, and the way he uses his intelligence to communicate and not to raise himself above others. In fact, in his 2001 memoir, "Building and the Living World," Han stated he was "merely a poor country boy from Rizhao," an impoverished rural area of China's Shandong Province. He added that he was "neither smart nor good at pleasing others with words." Han's tastefulness, his attention to detail, is evident in such works as the modernist geometric design of the Tiansiang Youth Activity Center operated by the China Youth Corps, which was finally completed in 1978 near the top of Taroko Gorge in Hualien County, and the traditional Chinese Nan-yuan garden constructed in 1985 at Sinpu Township, Hsinchu County. These daring designs won him an entry in Taiwan's architectural history, with the former being named the best-designed building of 1980 by The Architect magazine.
Most importantly for his students, a number of whom went on to become well-known architects or professors in their own right, he was a source of inspiration and creative thinking.
A geometric design, such as that done for the Tiansiang center was not always suitable, however. Han recalled June 13 that, when he presented a similar modernist idea in 1977 for the Chitou Youth Activity Center in Nantou County, Chiang Ching-kuo, director of the CYC--who was also President Chiang Kai-shek's eldest son--recommended he build a wooden lodge to harmonize with the surrounding forest. Han accepted the future president's suggestion, and the result was another highly acclaimed construction that is still used by young vacationers and nature-lovers today.
"One day, I passed the wooden structure in Chitou," Lo Shih-wei, dean-to-be of the Department of Architecture at Tunghai University, said June 14. "I was still amazed and touched with its beauty," added this former student of Han. "He took the lead again in exploring another possibility of architectural aesthetics, and soon, others followed his style and built more in the area."
Han said that although his design for the Chitou Youth Activity Center marked a significant step in his career, his first attempt to build something including elements of southern Fujianese style--brought to Taiwan by early immigrants--was the 1985 Institute of Ethnology project at the Academia Sinica. The original building had resembled a traditional Chinese palace, but the IOE director wanted to add local features.
Han created a front roof with red tiles that resembled the corner of a Taiwanese village, while further back there were pagoda-like circular roofs. The success of this project prompted Han to accept a 1985 invitation from Wang Tih-wu, founder of the United Daily News, to build a recreational resort for UDN employees. Recalling this in his memoir, Han says he took a risk by using a large English-style lawn with, as its centerpiece, a southern Chinese garden complex of lake surrounded by pavilions.
These and other successes are well recorded in books and magazines covering Taiwan's modern architecture. Han seemed to take more pride, however, in his teaching career as dean of the Department of Architecture at Tunghai University in the early 1970s. In his memoir, Han conceded that the position empowered him to engage in his experiments and stylistic breakthroughs. He wrote about the way he was educated at Harvard University for his master's degree in architecture and how he encouraged students to make cardboard models to improve their understanding of space, which is central to architectural modernism. He also redesigned the curriculum, removing engineering classes and replacing them with design-based courses.
In the classroom, he pushed his students to think and explore. Kris Yao, 56, is one well-known architect who admits to being greatly influenced by Han's teaching. "He encouraged us to think," said Yao June 14. Yao, who heads Artech Architects Taiwan, a company of over 100 professionals, illustrated his meaning by recalling such questions as "Why did you create this design? What's your reason for it?" at a time when most Taiwanese professors rarely interacted with their students.
Lo was another beneficiary of Han's criticism. "He did not just comment on our designs; sometimes, he went further by inviting other famous architects to the class and have them point out both the weaknesses and merits of our designs," Lo remembered.
Han was also involved in efforts to conserve the Confucius and Longshan temples in Changhua in 1976, a time when historic-site conservation was almost unheard of in Taiwan. "Restoring Changhua Confucius Temple was a historical move," Han recalled June 13. "Remember, those were the days when there was no legislation to preserve historic sites to speak of." The idea of restoring the temple centered on one principle, he said: preserving original material and decorative items wherever possible, while stressing structural safety. In other words, he wished to preserve the art of the traditional structure rather than the traditional building techniques.
"For me, restoration of historical buildings is a social service," Han stated in his memoir. "It does not make profits. Fortunately, I still own an architectural firm that does make some profits to compensate the losses," he added. Even today at 73 years of age, Han continues to run an architectural firm that mainly deals with restoration projects.
In 1981, he committed himself to a five-year project to build the National Museum of Natural Science, the country's first natural science museum and, therefore, a step into the dark. Great expectations were placed on Han's shoulders, and he felt under pressure to make it a great success. Failure to do so would mean a step backward for all his contemporaries seeking to create modern museums in Taiwan.
"My strategy was to separate the project into three phases and make sure that the first phase would make a huge splash. We also had to convince the Executive Yuan that all we needed was US$13 million, half the original budget," recalled Han. "We decided to build an IMAX cinema--only the fourth in the world--as the museum's main attraction. On the opening day, we had thousands of visitors waiting in line just to get into the cinema." That was Jan. 1, 1986; Premier Sun Yun-hsuen had originally asked him to stay in Taichung for three years, he said, but by the time he left in 1993, he had spent more than 12 years at the NMNS.
He was then ready to accept another challenge, Han said, that of setting up the Tainan National University of the Arts. Even after he retired from the post of TNUA president in 2000, Han accepted the invitation by Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society to be the first curator of its Museum of World Religions in Yonghe City, Taipei County.
To mark Han's 70th birthday in 2004, the school where he first taught architectural design--Tunghai University--honored him by establishing the Han Pao-teh Architecture Lecture, a program that invites internationally renowned scholars of architecture to speak to the staff and students.
"Mr. Han is an achiever in fields of culture, museum studies and architecture and a man of influence in Taiwanese society," said NMH Director Huang Yung-chuan June 15. "He fulfilled his ideals realistically as a highly respected cross-field scholar."
Write to Alexander Chou at alexchou@mail.gio.gov.tw