Historic villa unveiled as cultural center

Taipei City's Bureau of Cultural Affairs yesterday unveiled the grand opening of the Taipei Story House, a western style villa and historical cultural heritage center that is designed to exhibit old photos, stories and music to bring residents of Taipei back to "Old Taipei."

Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) attended the opening of the art house, saying "Taipei is a city full of stories. If we don't dig these stories up, the next generation may not know our history and our cultural heritage."

Director of the Taipei City Bureau of Cultural Affairs Liao Hsien-hao (廖咸浩) reiterated one of the city's long-standing policies to maintain and promote the revival of its cultural heritage.

"Cultural heritage is about telling a story in two ways, first by establishing the ancient and historical value of the heritage itself, then by attaching the contemporary importance of revival and re-utilization of the old heritage," Liao said yesterday.

Taipei Story House, of English Tudor-style architecture and located at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Chungshan North Road, was built in 1914 by the then prominent tea merchant Chen Chao-chun (陳朝駿), who named the construction Yuan Shan Villa during the Japanese colonization of Taiwan.

Chen used the building as a meeting house for local gentry, Japanese officials and foreign guests.

Over the years, the villa has gone through many changes. After Taiwan was returned to China in 1945, the building was used as a residence by Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書), former Speaker of the Legislative Yuan. In 1979, the building was purchased by the Taipei City Government and was managed by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

In 1990, it was converted into an artist activity center, which was later designated a historical site. The villa was closed down for renovation in 1998.

In 2002, the city's Bureau of Cultural Affairs, in an effort to promote the revival of historical sites, invited Chen Kuo-tzu (陳國慈), a lawyer and former chairwoman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Foundation (台積電文教基金會) to sponsor the founding of Taipei Story House and restore the Yuan Shan Villa to its original grandeur.

Chen said yesterday "with the coming of Easter Sunday tomorrow, there is no better time than now to celebrate the resurrection of the cultural heritage."

Now, the Taipei Story House is in care of Chen's hands in a four-year contract. The operation of the art house is expected to be returned to the cultural affairs bureau four years later.

The first story of the Western-style building is constructed from brick while the second story is fashioned from wood. The building's facade is adorned with branching wooden beams, in the tradition of English Tudor-style architecture.

The villa's staircase is constructed like a mini-pagoda, its roof fashioned from copper plates, the surfaces of which are discolored with verdigris.

The area over the entrance is adorned with green, yellow and red stained glass. Inside the villa are lovely fireplaces, as well as lanterns and tiles with floral patterns in bas-relief. All these architectural forms are rarely seen in historical Taiwanese structures.