There aren’t many hurdles left in Taipei’s race for World Design Capital of 2016 — the city is in the final evaluation stage. It’s also the only contender.
But the city government seems to be leaving nothing to chance. Ahead of a two-day evaluation, the Taipei City Government is launching the Taipei Design & City Exhibition (台北設計城市展) on Sunday. A correlated exhibition, the annual Taiwan Design Expo (2013台灣設計展), starts the same day at the same venue, featuring the latest international award-winning products made in Taiwan and a collection of designs curated from across the globe.
“These are exhibitions that would be held anyway, but the timing does have the upcoming [evaluation] visit in mind,” said publicist Iris Tseng (曾思宇).
Photo courtesy of PR & Communications
Now in its second year, the Taipei Design & City Exhibition is two galleries of industrial designs, urban planning strategies and public service programs meant to address problems like crowding and urban pollution. Most designs are only conceptual, but one gallery showcases what’s already in mass distribution, like EasyCard, YouBike, the Big Issue Taiwan project and the Keep Trash Off the Ground (垃圾不落地) program. One panel is about how iBon and other designs have converted Taipei’s convenience stores into full-fledged community centers that offer dining, afternoon tea and even a limited dry-cleaning service.
Other urban designs are lesser known, like the Motorbike Taxi Service — which offers cheap rides and grocery delivery in Beitou District — and the OurCityLove Friendly Restaurants Taipei mobile app, which helps disabled persons and their families locate an easily accessible restaurant. There’s Flying V, a crowd-funding platform that’s been called Taiwan’s version of Kickstarter.
The city design exhibition also includes a series of forums and a group show for 12 Taipei-based artists including Juby Chiu (邱娉勻) and Chang Hsiun-ming (張修明), who works primarily with furniture.
Photo courtesy of PR & Communications
Tseng said officials from the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design arrive this month for a two-day onsite evaluation, the final stage of Taipei City’s application.
Photo courtesy of PR & Communications
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
It was just before 6am on a sunny November morning and I could hardly contain my excitement as I arrived at the wharf where I would catch the boat to one of Penghu’s most difficult-to-access islands, a trip that had been on my list for nearly a decade. Little did I know, my dream would soon be crushed. Unsure about which boat was heading to Huayu (花嶼), I found someone who appeared to be a local and asked if this was the right place to wait. “Oh, the boat to Huayu’s been canceled today,” she told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. Surely,
RSS