More than 50 sites are to participate in the inaugural edition of the architectural festival Open House Hsinchu, which is to take place on Dec. 11 and 12, organizers said.
For 48 hours, members of the public can visit a selection of private spaces in the Greater Hsinchu area that are usually unnoticed, the organizers said in a statement on Thursday.
The event, which is free of charge, would give people a glimpse of a life in Hsinchu unknown to others, they said.
The festival is to feature places from private residences and architecture studios to religious sites, historical buildings and independent music venues, they said.
The Wastewater Treatment Plant at the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區) and the National Gravity Datum Service are among the locations that would be opened up to the public, Open House Hsinchu cofounder Cheng Hung-huei (鄭宏輝) said.
Hsinchu was the earliest city to be developed in northern Taiwan, and combines a rich history with culture and aesthetics, organizers said.
Over the past 40 years, it has also become the seat of the nation’s high-tech industry and given rise to world-class professional talent, they said.
This year, Hsinchu received authorization from the British headquarters of Open House Worldwide to become the 47th city in the world, and the fifth city in Asia, to host a certified Open House event, organizers said.
Since Open House Worldwide was founded in London in 1992, nearly 50 cities around the globe have joined the cultural movement, organizers said.
Each year, 2 million visits are made to locations as part of the Open House events, they added.
Through opening up private spaces, the initiative aims to facilitate interactions between their owners and members of the public, and allow them to step outside of their respective circles to jointly appreciate the urban space they share, organizers said.
Before the launch in December of Open House Hsinchu, organizers plan to hold a series of in-person forums and workshops, as well as online discussions, they said.
The talks would be aimed at creating a platform for dialogue between experts of the participating spaces and members of the public before the festival begins, they said.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions and capacity constraints, each space would be opened to a limited number of visitors at a time, organizers said.
Registrations are scheduled to open online next month, they said.
In related news, Open House Taipei, which held its inaugural edition last year, is to return for a second edition — themed “Re-Taipei” — on Nov. 27 and 28.
Additional reporting by CNA
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS