Growth depletes Huashan joy
The Huashan Cultural and Creative Industries Park, also known as the Huashan 1914 Creative Park, or sometimes just Huashan, occupies a large stretch of land in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山). The park is a popular spot for Taipei residents to visit on their days off, as well as being one of Taiwan’s classic cultural and creative locations.
Apart from the bewildering range of exhibitions and activities that take place there, Huashan’s biggest attractions are the broad plaza that lies in front of the historic buildings and the grassy plain that lies behind them.
In these wide-open spaces, children can run around, let off steam and play to their hearts’ content.
As most people know, the Huashan of today includes a variety of historic structures that are officially listed among Taipei’s cultural assets. Some of the buildings belonged to the former Taipei Wine Factory, originally built by a private company, and later operated by the Monopoly Bureau of the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office under Japanese rule, and by its successor under the Republic of China government.
Another part of the Huashan complex is the former factory of Japan Camphor Co’s Taihoku Branch, and an adjacent area used to be the railway system’s Huashan Freight Station.
However, what many people might not know is that Huashan is about to see some big changes. The area adjacent to the western edge of Huashan park’s grassy plain is destined to become a huge complex known as the Huashan Judicial Park, which will incorporate the Taiwan High Court and Taipei District Court.
This edifice will reportedly consist of five floors below ground and nine floors above. Meanwhile, the area in front of Huashan Park is the planned construction site for a large building called Huashan 2.0. Do we in the 21st century still equate progress with erecting tall buildings, and do we believe that 2.0 will be better than the previous version?
Let us recall how Huashan came to be preserved in the first place.
In 1997, the Golden Bough Theater (金枝演社) performed a stage play at Huashan, but police arrested some of the organizers on a charge of “occupying state land.”
In the wake of that incident, negotiations took place between the Taiwan Provincial Government’s Office of Culture and the Monopoly Bureau, as a result of which the bureau commissioned the culture office to manage and maintain the site for three years starting from 1999.
This arrangement marked the official birth of modern-day Huashan as a creative venue for artists, performers and nonprofit groups. This was the original purpose for which Huashan was established.
More than 20 years later, the Ministry of Culture came up with a “development plan for the Huashan 2.0 cultural content business cluster” that would occupy an area of about 3,000m2.
According to a media report, design illustrations show the buildings occupying a large area, including a rooftop garden that, combined with the modernistic exterior, will surely become a new hotspot for taking photos and “checking in.”
Are we really reverting to the old idea that putting up buildings is the only way to make progress and breathe life into cultural heritage? So what if the buildings occupy a large area?
The Huashan of my dreams is the magical Huashan where I took my children to run around and blow bubbles — a place where we could pursue a happiness of our own creation.
The big grassy plain and wide-open plaza — these are the Huashan that Taipei residents really love.
LEE TUNG-MING
Taipei
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