The Taipei City Government yesterday praised the quality of the upcoming Taipei International Flora Expo after the pavilions in the Xinsheng Park Area won the top prize for this year’s Taiwan Architecture Award.
The three pavilions — the Pavilion of Dreams, the Pavilion of the Future and the Pavilion of Life — are the latest works by local architect Chang Ching-hwa (張清華), who is known for incorporating reusable and eco-friendly materials into her works.
The three pavilions are built with wood and recyclable materials such as plastic bottles, and built around old trees in the park, while rooftops and walls are populated with vegetation.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday shared his pride for the professional recognition given to the buildings and invited local and foreign tourists to visit the buildings in the expo, which are meant to showcase the strength of the nation’s architects.
“All the buildings in the expo are made in Taiwan, showing some of the best work by our -local architects. Visitors to the expo can pay more attention to the architects in addition to enjoying the flowers,” he said.
Describing the award as “the best gift to the expo,” Hau said the prize should help Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors, who accused the city government and Chang of spending too much money on the construction of the buildings and other structures in the park, realize the architectural value of the pavilions.
DPP Taipei City councilors had challenged Chang and the expo over the price of the -bamboo-structure resting booths in the Xinsheng Park Area, which cost NT$350,000 each.
Chang said the pavilions used the same thermal insulating plastics as the Beijing National Aquatics Center and are powered by solar panels. The cost of the buildings and structures included design and maintenance fees.
The expo is in the final phase of trial operations and will formally open on Nov. 6.
DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) also paid a visit to the expo on Monday and complained about a lack of garbage cans and ongoing construction.
Hau thanked Su for his comments and said all construction would be done before the grand opening, adding that the expo’s organizing committee would fix all the problems found during the trial run as soon as possible.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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