Students and netizens have ridiculed National Taichung First Senior High School’s ambitious new gatehouse, saying the NT$9.6 million (US$303,107) structure is “ugly” and looks like it fronts a "hostess bar."
The gatehouse replaces a 40-year-old building that was said to be unsafe.
Apparently inspired by “modernist” aesthetics, the new gatehouse boasts reflective metal surfaces and neon lights, which the school lit up on Saturday evening.
Its first day of use is scheduled to be today.
However, the response of netizens was less than enthusiastic.
A picture of the structure was uploaded to Professional Technology Temple (PTT) — the nation’s largest academic online bulletin board — the same evening.
Most PTT users commenting on the photo criticized the gatehouse as ugly.
One said: “Why the hell does this thing have lights? It is beyond garish.”
Another said: “It looks like the entrance to one of those ‘eight major special establishment categories (八大特種行業),’” a term referring to seedy karaoke bars, saunas, massage parlors and hostess bars that offer illegal sexual services.
“As a former student, I say it is superlatively ugly,” another critical PTT user said.
National Taichung First Senior High School secretary-general Chen Yu-ke (陳余各) was quoted in the Chinese-language Apple Daily as saying that the gatehouse was designed by the Da-Yeh University College of Design and Arts and was approved after “about a dozen” school meetings, adding that the novelty of its appearance and the bright lights might be responsible for its inadvertent impact on the public.
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