Taipei City councilors and officials yesterday slammed renovation work on Chungshan Hall (中山堂) which has dragged on for almost a decade and cost about NT$300 million.
"This is just a waste of taxpayers' money and time," said New Party City Councilor Lee Ching-yuan (
Lee was one of three city councilors invited by Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), director of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs (
Lung said that previous renovation work at Chungshan Hall during the last decade had many shortcomings. She highlighted the hall's Chungcheng Pavilion as an example, and said that while it had a state-of-the-art stereo system, its chairs were second-rate, noisy and uncomfortable.
Lee criticized the writing rooms in the hall's cultural center as looking "more like restrooms from a distance and prison cells from up close."
The center is part of a renovation project funded by the Cabinet's Council for Cultural Affairs (文建會). The council allocated NT$8 million in 1994 during Huan Ta-chou's (黃大洲) term as Taipei mayor.
The city earmarked over NT$200 million for the two-phase renovation of the Chungcheng Room during Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) term as city mayor.
Last December, the bureau started the NT$20 million, six-month renovation of the Fuhsing Room. It plans to spend NT$46 million on the renovation of the Chungcheng Room, which it hopes to complete by the end of the year.
Built in 1936 during the Japan-ese colonial era, Chungshan Hall served as a venue for national banquets and National Assembly meetings after being handed over to the Taipei City Government in 1945. It was designated a national historic relic in 1992.
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