Print

Mail

wiki links

Plan to put nation's flag on Taipei 101 hits snags

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has postponed plans to fly a large Taiwanese flag atop Taipei 101 -- the world's tallest building -- to help raise the nation's profile.

The plans called for putting a flag at the top of the Taipei 101 building that would be large enough to be seen from the ground. However, strong winds at such heights and other technical problems would put workers at great risk, municipal officials said.

Other options, such as posting the flag outside the top of the building or using ceramic tiles to display the flag's pattern, were also scrapped due to similar concerns, they said.

"Our several plans have all encountered difficulties, but we haven't totally given up yet," Ma told reporters yesterday.

Taipei City Hall is racking its brains to overcome such obstacles so that it can display the nation's flag on the building during the upcoming New Year's eve flag-raising ceremony.

Ma, who is also the chairman of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), came up with the idea during a flag-rising ceremony in front of City Hall on Double Ten National Day, according to the Chinese-language Apple Daily.

"To make the flag visible to the people on the ground, we have to manufacture a huge flag which is the same height as an eight-story building," said Lo Chih-cheng (羅智成), commissioner of the city's Department of Information.

"We initially wanted to hang the flag at the top of the building. The problem is the difficulty of unfurling such a huge flag in gale-force winds. The wind speed at the height of 508m is about 150-166 kph," Lo said.

Lo said it's impossible for workers to set up the flag on top of the building in such conditions, and that the flag could also be dangerous if it fell.

The Apple Daily said that Ma wanted to attract the world's attention, since Taiwan's flag is seldom seen abroad because of China's bullying.

Lo said that the city government is considering other options besides flying the flag at the very top of the building.

"But so far we haven't found a solution," Lo said.

Lo said that another proposal was to make the flag encircle the outside of building, but high winds are still a problem.

"Some people suggested posting the flag from the inside of the building, but the reinforced glass would prevent people from being able to see the flag from the outside," Lo said.

Other ideas were to project the national flag onto the building at night, or light up the building with the flag's colors and pattern. But both also present technical hurdles.
This story has been viewed 3920 times.