On Thursday last week, Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) took a group of historical monument experts and architects along with her on a high-profile inspection tour of the former office of the Osaka Shosen Kaisha shipping line in Taipei.
Lung called the building a “gift from on high” and said she expected it to be used as a “photography culture center” after it has been restored.
It was rather strange for Lung to announce a plan for a photography center without soliciting the opinions of any photography experts. Although she invited heritage experts and architects, she completely overlooked the conservation groups and individuals who struggled to save the building by reporting its significance and requesting an inquiry.
The building is in front of Taipei Railway Station and has always had something to do with transport. After the shipping line stopped using it, it became home to the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) when the agency was in charge of all road traffic in Taiwan. It sits near the site of the Japanese-era Ministry of Railways and post-war Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) at Beimen (北門).
One thing that the building has no particular connection to is photography.
Lung sees the building as a “gift” because she has no clue as to how many people see it as a priceless treasure that needs to be preserved, or that it is only because of the efforts of those people that the building is still standing.
She needs to realize that the building is not a “gift from on high” that she can use for whatever takes her fancy. More public discussion and more thought about the building’s cultural and historical significance are needed before its future is decided.
Preserving photographic records, especially rare ones, is an important issue. The ministry’s idea of setting up a national memory bank, among whose roles would be to salvage, restore and preserve important photographic materials, is an urgently needed project.
However, the building in question forms part of Taipei’s bustling transport hub, so it would be a waste to use it as an archive. A photography center would have nothing at all to do with the building itself, and the idea shows a distinct lack of thought about the historical links between the building and some of its long-time neighbors.
Taiwan’s transportation history is multifaceted. There are a variety of historical buildings and monuments around Taipei Railway Station, and all these points could be joined up to form a zone with a transport theme.
Just around Beimen there is the former TRA headquarters, which would be an ideal site for a railway museum. Across the road is the Beimen Post Office, which is perhaps Taiwan’s most important old post office building. Across another road is the former Mitsui warehouse — one of the few remaining historical freight-transport buildings near Taipei Main Station.
As for the Osaka Shosen Kaisha building, its historical significance has to do with shipping, while its post-war use makes it symbolic of the development of road transport.
A culture minister who thinks this building is just a “gift” cannot be expected to see what it should really be used for.
As one of those who reported this old building for consideration as a cultural asset, I beg the ministry to pay more heed to outside opinions and be more sensitive to the cultural context of such buildings, and be more mindful of the development of the city and the importance of these historical buildings within this.
After all the effort that has been put into preserving this historic structure, it would not be right to dedicate it to some ill-fitting purpose.
Hung Chih-wen is a professor of geography at National Taiwan Normal University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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