National Cheng Kung University’s architecture department is holding an exhibition in Taipei featuring the original drawings of famed architects made when they were still in school.
The department was established 70 years ago during the Japanese colonial era at the then-Tainan Advanced Engineering School and is the oldest in the nation.
The exhibition, which runs until Sunday at the Taipei Huashan 1914 Creative Park, is divided into three sections highlighting the works of students from different periods.
The university said it hopes to show through the exposition not only how society has changed, but also how architectural education has changed with the times.
Famed architect Kao San-chin (高山青), an 80-year-old alumnus of the university, was very moved when he spoke at the opening of the exhibition on Saturday, saying one has to live long to be able to witness such a grand event as the department’s 70th anniversary.
He asked all who were present to join him in observing a minute of silence in honor of those who were not able to be present at the occasion and encouraged the school’s young alumni to “work harder to achieve more than they did.”
Another alumnus, Lee Chi-huang (李濟湟), flew in from the US to attend the event. Lee said that despite the variety of styles showcased at the exhibition, all architectural students had one thing in common, and that was the experience of spending countless nights huddled over a desk trying to finish their draft.
Among the works on display are drawings by Han Pao-teh (漢寶德), a renowned architecture teacher, and Lee Tsu-yuan (李祖原), the designer of skyscrapers including the Taipei 101 and the 85 Skytower in Greater Kaohsiung, which drew special attention as visitors pored over their detailed sketches.
Fu Chao-ching (傅朝卿), a professor in the architecture department, highlighted a drawing of an apartment complex by Lee Tsu-yuan, saying it was drawn at a time when the government was promoting public housing.
Many architectural students had used such housing complexes for practice, with the trend then moving toward modernism with an emphasis on simplicity, practicality and asymmetry, Fu said.
Adornments or decorations were not encouraged and some even viewed them as sinful, Fu said, laughing.
Looking at Lee Tsu-yuan’s designs today, Fu said many would consider the apartments too small, with each unit measuring only about 10 ping (33.1m2).
However, one has to bear in mind that when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government first came to Taiwan, only big families lived in a house measuring 20 ping or more, he said.
Aside from showing how the great masters had started small, the drawings show how design trends in Taiwan changed over the years, Fu said.
One of the works on exhibit is a design for a hospital made by Wang Hsiu-lien (王秀蓮), whom many consider to be the nation’s first female architect.
Wang talked about the difficulties of looking for work as an architect at a time when gender rather than ability and skill counted more.
“Nobody wanted to, or dared to, use a female architect,” Wang said.
After being repeatedly rejected, Wang went back to university and worked as an assistant while preparing for the civil servants’ examination. Upon passing the examination, Wang started her own business.
Fu said that the major difference between architecture students now and before is that students today rely too much on technology, while those in the past had nothing but pen, paper and brains.
The works on display show the intricate and exquisite details painstakingly drawn by hand, Fu said, warning that an overreliance on computers can sometimes have the adverse effect of technology leading the student’s hand.
Fu said that many US universities forbid freshman students from using computer-generated graphics for their works, while Cheng Kung has continued its sketching classes and course on Song Dynasty calligraphy to help train students.
Aside from the exposition, the school has also setup a cross-generational platform on which it hopes architects of all ages can converse with each other, give tips, or learn a few new tricks.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not