After the dismantling of an access ramp to the Zhongxiao Bridge (忠孝橋) on Taipei’s Zhongxiao W Road, the historic North Gate (北門) is once more free of the structural eyesores that surrounded it, a symbol of Taiwan’s apparent newfound respect for culture and historical buildings.
The Taipei Urban Planning Commission, should it choose to, can now continue in this vein when reviewing its urban renewal plans for the western districts of the city by thinking about whether the historic Mitsui-Soko warehouse should be moved 51m east.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) believes that, according to resolutions by the Bureau of Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture from May 2012, this would perhaps be the best way of preserving the building, and has given the plan his blessing.
The primary reason for the swift decision to dismantle the ramp was to relieve traffic congestion around the North Gate.
The second factor had to with cultural, aesthetic and environmental considerations. The speed at which the decision was taken saved countless hours of meetings and veritable mountains of paperwork. In addition to that, it means that the North Gate has been restored as a symbolical gateway into the city.
There is no shortage of similar examples of relocations in other nations. The impressive Abu Simbel temples in Egypt, constructed between 1264 BC and 1244 BC in honor of the pharaoh of the time, Ramses II, comprise an ancient Egyptian historical site originally located about 230km southwest of the present-day city of Aswan, facing the Nile River near Nubia. The complex was set against the mountains and the entrances to the two temples are flanked by massive 20m-tall statues of Ramses II. Beside these statues are a number of much smaller statues, representing members of Ramses II’s family.
At sunrise on Feb. 22 and Aug. 22 of each year, sunlight pours into the entrance of these temples. It is said that the engineers who designed the temples, wanting later generations to remember the pharaoh’s birthday, intentionally and ingeniously applied astronomical calculations to work out a way for the sun’s rays to penetrate the more than 60m-long tunnel, all the way to the end, on the same day every year to illuminate the temple, which had lain untouched by the sun throughout the rest of the year.
Following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the Egyptian government decided to construct the Aswan High Dam. Out of concerns that the temples would be permanently submerged, the government set into motion a plan in 1959 to relocate the monuments to a safe location. The result was that the temples were conserved. The only problem is that the sun’s rays hit the chamber a day later than was originally intended.
There are examples of this type of relocation having been performed in Taiwan. The Wang Gong temple in Sihjie (四結), Yilan County, and the Kaohsiung Train Station building were both relocated.
As long as the will is there, there is no reason that the Mitsui-Soko warehouse cannot also become another major symbol of cultural advancement.
Yang Chyi-wen is the president of the Taipei National University of the Arts.
Translated by Paul Cooper
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan. Is she really, though? Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it. “Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies. If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
RSS