Abstract
That Taichung becomes one of the leading cities in Taiwan is part of a story that is less than one century old. Historically, the plateau in the central basin of the island of Taiwan where the city is located was cultivated under the supervision of Tainan, Chiayi, and many other traditional cultural centers. Changhua, today a comparably minor city close to Taichung, was established in 1722 and dominated the region for a long time because of its good seaside location and available transportation. There was a brief bureaucratic reformation that transferred the power from Tainan to Taichung in 1887, and later further north to Taipei. This transfer led to the reconstruction of Taichung in 1889, and the new city had eight main-gate buildings with single pitched roofs that were surrounded by newly established walls.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See Huang (1997) and Chang (1993). The Urban Regularization Scheme was officially announced by the Japanese government for the first time in the 1930s. However, its large-scale experiments in colonized countries, such as Korea and Taiwan, literally started in the early part of the twentieth century. The implementation of urban planning system was part of institutional control over the colonies. By the end of the World War II, there were up to 72 cities in Taiwan that completed the urban regularization scheme.
- 3.
See Aoi (2013). In comparing the colonial urban growth of Changhua with that of other cities in Taiwan, Aoi examined in detail how the Urban Regularization changed the trajectory of cities in Taiwan. For him, the scheme only meant to construct new cities and had a very limited focus on the subjects of urban street and drainage system.
- 4.
See Otsuji (1943). William K. Burton (1856–1899) was a British engineer who lived in Meiji Japan since 1887. From 1896 to 1899, he worked in Taiwan as the Adviser in Sanitary Engineering. He helped to improve the sanitation systems with the support from the Governor-General of Taiwan. His exemplary projects include the water-works at Tamsui and Kelung, and the drainage system of Taihoku. See Davidson (1903).
- 5.
See Chen (2011). The consulting team members of UHDC specialized in urban design and planning included Donald Monson, Karl J. Belser, Lweis R. Coyle, and Edmund T. Ames, etc. They examined approximately 132 items, covering the subjects of urban planning, housing, land development, transportation, administration, urban environment, industry and economy. For Taichung region, they completed at least several major preliminary reports and drafts for urban planning, including the Regional Plan for the Metropolitan Taichung, Docking District Plan, Urban Outline Plan, Public Water Resource Survey, Statistical Analysis of Population Density and Growth, Assessment for the Future Thirty Years’ Industry Development, and Statistics for Land Use and Rice Production.
- 6.
Online resource via: http://www.99ch.com.tw/info-detail.asp?lang=1&doc_id=1389 (Access date: 2018/05/12). The Urban Design for the Guggenheim Garden invited three international leading architects, including Frank Gehry (for the Municipal Building), Zaha Hadid (for the Museum), and Jean Nouvel (for the National Theater). The proposed museum would have a gross floor area of up to 88,000 m2, compared with 38,000 sq. for the National Theater, 35,500 m2. for the Municipal Building and 31,000 m2. for the Parliament Building. The final contract for the feasibility study and evaluation agreement was co-signed by Mayor Jason Hu , CEO for the Guggenheim Foundation Thomas Krens, and the then Director of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Sr. D. Juan Ignacio Vidarte in Bilbao.
- 7.
The administrative office of the central government granted 1.2 billion NTD (40 million USD) for the project. See Administrative Office of the Central Government (2003).
- 8.
There are different definitions of public space. To explain the publicity in Taiwan, the author would like to borrow the concept of public typologies made by the architectural critic Hsia Chu-Joe: (1) the tectonics of a critical public forum, which works as a mediating institution to regulate the citizenship between the nation power and private interests; (2) the national administrative system; (3) the community defined by self-authorization; (4) an urban symbolic representation that holds indispensible political principles. In this chapter, ‘publicity’ refers to the first and fourth categories—citizenship regulation and urban symbolic representation. Publicity should not be identified according to the property and user alone, but by a bourgeoise operation of space that qualifies the citizenry and control over the daily access to particular space of symbolism. See Hsia (1994).
- 9.
Plot Ratio Transfer 容积移转 is also called the transfer of development rights in Western scholarship. It aims to deal with the conflict between the protection of spatial right and the marketing development. It is useful especially wen ordinary statutory plans cannot offer a flexible solution to the different actual requirements of plot ratio control. See for example Levinson (1997).
- 10.
See Jin and Dai (2010). The first experimental application of the plot ratio transfer in Taiwan came along with the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law in 1982. During that time, there was an emerging social consciousness in protecting cultural heritage. The subsequent issues of the specific protection law, however, violated the property rights of the owners within the protection district. Plot Ratio Transfer was thus one of the potential schemes that promoted economic compensation to the stakeholders. According to the guideline for transfer (2004), a new amount of plot ratio would be rewarded by a careful calculation, and the receiving area for that could be a different plot in the same or any other special district.
- 11.
See for example, Third Review to SDSC of the Urban Planning of Taichung (2012).
- 12.
The City of Taichung issued the guideline for plot ratio transfer in urban planning in June 2005. By the time of March 2008, there had already been around 144 TDR cases in relation to public space development, which means 11,224,500 sq. of floor area subject to the scheme. According to the overall planning, Taichung had more than 54,283 ha of public space to be reclaimed from private owners. This means more than 13.8% of the future residential and commercial areas was about to be transferred accordingly.
- 13.
Especially see Chapter Seven: Open Space, p. 94 and pp. 106–107.
- 14.
Ibid. p. 94. The check list includes: (1) no surrounding fences higher than 1.2 m; (2) no bushes higher than 1.2 m; (3) fully exposed public signage; (4) no illegal construction; (5) no safeguard inspection; (6) no illegal usage.
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Writing about National Taichung Theater is always difficult, not only because of the constant transitions of power since the city was built and the political agenda of the physical environment, but also because of the competing economic and administrative struggles, which have resulted in the postponement of a national project for ideological and budgetary reasons. These same reasons led the government to ‘commercialise public interests’, even at the expense of impairing long-conceived publicity and the very nature of modern cultural institutions.
However, we see exceptional contributions from various bodies to this marvellous building. Without persistence in design philosophy and fabrication technology, citizens of Taichung would have no opportunity to explore the magical caves of Jules Verne or dream within the musical palace of Alice’s wonderland. I felt like an intruder exploring its architectural qualities on my first visit, but like a close friend on my second. This change in mind-set about belonging shows the embodiment of human experience and how modern citizens can engage in social life while being inspired and motivated by artistic intervention in the built environment. I have frequented Taichung for family reasons, and when my year-and-a-half-old son stared at the musicians playing Bach in the central lobby, I know that another round of self-enlightenment has begun.
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Xiao, J. (2019). The National Taichung Theater: Experimenting Publicity of Metropolitan Urbanism. In: Xue, C. (eds) Grand Theater Urbanism . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7868-3_9
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