Going upmarket

Jiancheng Circle market's latest incarnation is a light red brick, steel-and-tinted glass structure in the middle of a major roundabout. Situated in Datong, one of Taipei's oldest-settled areas, the building symbolizes modernity, wealth and ties with the past.

Its history is that of Taipei written small: from being the first stand of a fruit vendor, to being a last stand for the Japanese, to being a food market and now in its evolved form, on the circular intersection of Nanjing West Road, Chongqing North Road, Tianshui Road and Ningxia Road.

Formally opened two weeks ago, Jiancheng Circle Food Court swirls round two concentric floors that include a food market with 20 food stalls, a Chinese opera and art space, a garden on the rooftop, a preserved reservoir from the end of the Japanese colonial period (1895 to 1945) and memory cabinets.

The story goes that the first person to realize the site's potential was a fruit vendor, about 100 years ago, who passed through the area carrying his heavy load after a bad day at the market. He paused to rest but when he did someone asked to buy his fruit. He sold out and was inevitably joined by others. The unregulated market kept growing and in a scene that is still familiar today, a game of cat-and-mouse with the police ensued, who tried to move the vendors on and maintain a thoroughfare. At the end of World War II the Japanese formed a defensive circle round the area.

By the late 1940s the market had established itself and was basically a collection of shacks set off from the roads by iron railings that sold "small eats" such as oyster omelettes, pig heart in gravy, fish ball soup, soup made from intestines and other staple dishes at the time. In the 1960s there was the same hodge-podge of unregulated market space, crammed into the circle, but bounded by advertising hoardings. In the 1980s the market was put under one roof. Fires in 1993 and 1999 and the market's deterioration prompted the Taipei City Government to revitalize it.

In doing so it set respected local architect Lee Tsu-yuan (李祖原) the task of improving traffic flows, consolidating the original circular construction and providing new activity spaces. He succeeded, but in doing so has come up with a building that seems to have come from Dutch artist MC Escher's drawing board, a multifunctional area that spirals upward on concrete walkways, with a web of cargo netting to prevent falls. Instead of dark alleys and a covered market, however, there is always light and a feeling of space. The renovation cost NT$160 million and is described by the city government as "Taipei's halo."

The symbolism of Jiancheng Circle as a central meeting point has been maintained but updated. Nearby Ningxia night market caters to serious eaters, while Yuan Guang provides a more elegant environment to make a date or show around someone from out of town. It is one of the city's new faces.

"It's pretty, very pretty indeed," said Tseng Mao-sung (曾茂松), who has had a stall in the market since 1969 selling bowls of fragrant chicken and rice. "I was really pleased to move in again and I think it [the government] has done a good job. It's the best the market's been. A lot has changed since I first came here though, like Taipei itself."

Of the 100 food vendors who operated from the market before it was knocked down in 2001, some have come back but others could not wait and collectively took a reported NT$50 million in compensation. Some vendors are still moving in, like Hsiao Chien-chung (蕭建忠), the owner of a teppanyaki restaurant that straddles two floors of the building. Though not one of the original stallholders, Hsiao said he was local and had been in the restaurant business for 20 years.