Taipei Fine Arts Museum
They had a great exhibit called "Open City: Architecture in Art" when I visited last week. One of the coolest exhibits was a room with a projection screen and a square with an "X" marked on the floor with tape. Visitors were instructed to walk around the room and stand in the X. When you stand still, the graphic of collage pieces gets assembled into the image of a building, and as you move, the building deconstructs and reconstructs to follow you. You can imagine me prancing around the room with glee. Really cool.
Stencil graffiti
I've seen urban stencil graffiti in some European cities, but did not expect to see it here. I spotted this little gem on a wall facing a small parking lot on my walk home from school.
Preserved Traditional Courtyard House on the Campus of a Middle School
You won't see too many of these around town anymore, especially ones that are quite so well preserved with the courtyard intact. The rounded roof ridges is a feature of traditional Fujian architecture, and is used for typical households. Households with a high-ranking official would typically have roof ridges with pointed ends.
National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, formerly the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall
This was completed in 1980, and I remember scurrying over here as a child, since my childhood home is only a stone's throw away. The statue of Chiang Kai-Shek seated in an armchair in the pavilion of that pointy building in the background is reminiscent of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial or on the "tail" side of a penny. You can spot groups of people doing Tai Chi here in the morning.
Presidential Office Building
Why there is Western colonial architecture in Taiwan? Most colonial-style buildings are a relic of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan.
One of four original city gates, now just a pretty ornament in a traffic circle. The four gates were once connected by city walls, now long gone. The size of the original city is pretty small, it only takes about 15-20 minutes to walk from one gate to the next.
1 comment:
Awesome photos - thanks CJL! Especially loved the Taipei Fine Arts Museum - such 60's-70's Brutalist-style concrete Architecture (drooling!). How was the Biennial?
I loved all the references in the Archi-Lab Section to "the Oblique City," "the Bubble City," "the Geometric City," "the Machine City,"the Futurist City," "Megastructures," "Deconstruction," "Radical Architecture" and "Non-Standard Architecture." Sounds like an episode of Blade Runner meets The Borg on Star Trek. Love-it, Love-it, Love-it! (Architectural Design Resistance is Futile)
Oh, by the way - rumor has it (according to the penny website) that there may very well be stretched pennies at the Taipei Space Museum. Hmmmm ... somebody better locate and go check out that museum next is all I'm gonna' say (hint-hint).
Juani :-)
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