TAIpei
revealed
quoc‘n’roll
Tour de Taipei with an urban cycling guru
All about leaf Tea ceremonies Taiwan style
PARKLIFE!
We get all cultural and creative in Songshan
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CONTENTS MOVERS & SHAKERS | 004
TEAM TAIWAN Four innovators whose work has helped put a new spin on 'Made in Taiwan'
work in Progress
01 SONGSHAN CULTURAL AND CREATIVE PARK An 18-storey shopping mall is being built next to the former Songshan Tobacco Factory, a Japanese-era industrial complex that will now house boutiques, cinemas and cafés
teatime | 008
POT LUCK A potted guide to the tea ceremony, plus contemporary accessories cycling | 010
02 FARGLORY DOME
As the architectural transformation gathers pace, a new cultural park and stadium are shaping up nicely
The new multipurpose stadium by Populous will seat 40,000 under a silver carapace-shaped roof. It will also house the Taiwan Museum of Baseball
Photography Jeremy Liebman Writer emma o’kelly
ROUTE MASTER Fashion designer Quoc Pham takes us on a cycling tour of the capital design | 014
ALL TIED UP
We show you the ropes with our pick of Taiwan's best new furniture designs ARCHITECTURE | 016
URBAN OASES The new cultural districts and green buildings transforming Taipei hotspots | 020
STREETS AHEAD Three Taipei creatives take us to their favourite spots in the Taiwanese capital Editor Daven Wu
Sub Editor Léa Teuscher
Producer Carly Gray
Editor-in-Chief Tony Chambers
Art Director Lee Belcher
Publishing Director Gord Ray
Designer Jamie Sage
Advertising Director Paula Cain
This project has been made possible with the support of Faye Wang, Elisa Oddone, Grace Wang, Anju Yu, Musee Wu, Bobby Ho and Josh Chang
Wallpaper* World Headquarters Blue Fin Building 110 Southwark Street London SE1 OSU United Kingdom Tel: 44.20 31485000 E-mail: contact @wallpaper.com
Cover illustration by David Jien
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taipei revealed | under construction
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Taiwan continues to be a fertile ground on which Western architects can indulge their more fantastical designs. When American architect Neil Denari’s and his curvaceous, Zaha-lite harbour service building opens next year in Keelung, it will put the island’s busiest port straight onto the design map. At the other end of the spectrum, Finnish architect Marco Casagrande has completed the transformation of Treasure Hill in Taipei, from a once rickety community of illegal urban farmers into a sustainable artistic enclave. It has now become a tourist destination. Meanwhile, the argument to nurture home-grown talent rather than adopt Western architectural ideals is growing apace. At this year’s Venice Biennale, Taiwanese architects Liao Wei-li and Michael Lin created an installation out of corrugated cardboard to explain how Taiwanese architecture has been influenced historically by cultural and geological conditions, among them earthquakes and high mountains. Not surprisingly, high-rises didn’t feature. Taipei’s financial district of Xinyi is about to get a new lease of life with the opening next year of the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. Located on the site of the former Songshan Tobacco Factory, a 1930s landmark built by the Japanese as a self-contained industrial village, it will bring performance and exhibition space, movies and shops to a new generation of Taiwanese. An 18-storey shopping mall will be operated by Eslite, the retailer that opened as Taiwan’s first 24-hour bookstore 23 years ago, and many of the historic buildings will remain as monuments. The factory closed in 1998, and plans for its transformation have been a decade in the making. However, the jewel in the crown of Songshan is undoubtedly the 40,000 seat Farglory Dome. Due to open in 2014, it has been created as a major new arena for baseball (Taiwan’s national sport) as well as a venue for trade shows, exhibitions and concerts. The 29,400 sq m space was created by stadia specialists Populous, who created the London Olympic stadium and are currently building Brazil’s Estadio das Dumas which opens in 2014. Its roof will open and shut to accommodate Taipei’s rainy climate. The opening of the park next May will be huge; think Westfield Stratford-style crowds, plus Olympics buzz, and you’ll start to get the picture. ∂ www.songshanculturalpark.org; www.farglorydome.com.tw
taipei revealed | movers & Shakers
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Grace Wang Founder, VVG Wang opened VVG Bistro with a group of friends in 1999, a time when Western food in Taipei usually meant spaghetti with ketchup and overcooked steak. A seasoned traveller, she yearned for more sophisticated fare in a casual setting. With its open kitchen and cosy interiors, VVG – an acronym for ‘very very good’ – was a hit, and nearly 14 years later, it has evolved into a mini-empire including the upscale restaurant VVG Table, bookstore VVG Something (pictured here), and patisserie VVG Bon Bon. Wang’s success reflects the growing urbanity of Taipei’s residents: her businesses are carefully curated studies in eclecticism, where customers can find everything from Japanese stationery to French cookbooks. Her latest project is her most ambitious: occupying two floors of a former factory, VVG Thinking, comprising a restaurant, bookstore, and a work area, opened in November. vvgvvg.blogspot.co.uk
team taiwan Thanks to a lengthening list of local innovators, the ‘Made in Taiwan’ label is now synonymous with cutting-edge, home-grown design Photography Jeremy Liebman Writer Jennifer chen
Imin Pao Taipei’s creative scene grew out of Taiwan’s industrial and entrepreneurial drive in the 1970s and 1980s; ‘Made in Taiwan’ was then a byword for cheap, mass-produced goods. But slowly, quite without anyone really noticing it, the island’s manufacturers turned from simply churning out goods to actually designing them, helping to foster a generation of creative leaders such as Hsieh Jung-ya (see overleaf), who put in time with computer giant Acer before striking out on his own and becoming one of Taiwan’s most acclaimed industrial designers. Hsieh’s career trajectory is mirrored by the creatives profiled in these pages, as well as a returning diaspora. All share one thing in common: the same entrepreneurial flair that lifted Taiwan from agrarian backwater to economic powerhouse and which now, alongside urban renewal initiatives and the public’s growing appreciation for good design, is turning Taipei into one of Asia’s most dynamic creative scenes.
Co-founder, PPaper Art director, editor, brand and design consultant, retailer, curator – there’s little the renaissance man of Taipei’s creative scene hasn’t done. The USeducated Pao (pictured here at his office/home) started out at advertising stalwarts Wieden + Kennedy, before co-founding his own creative agency PPgroup in 1995. In 2004, he launched PPaper, a biweekly magazine that quickly became one of Asia’s most influential design publications. In between setting up the Museum of Tomorrow, a gallery/café/shop, and The Brand Partner, an outfit specialising in branding, Pao maintains a keen interest in art. This autumn, as part of the Museum of Tomorrow’s ‘Art for the Masses’ exhibition, he unveils a limited series of gold-plated dog sculptures by Chinese artist Zhou Chunya in vitrines designed by Jaime Hayón. Pao also plans to add real estate developer to his CV, and is now looking for land in China. www.ppaper.net
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taipei revealed | movers & shakers
Wang Chen Tsai-Hsia
Hsieh Jung-Ya
Founder and fashion director, Shiatzy Chen When Wang, standing here in one of her Taipei boutiques, launched her fashion house Shiatzy Chen in 1978, ‘Made in Taiwan’ wasn’t a label synonymous with luxury. But the selftaught designer, now hailed as Taiwan’s Coco Chanel, stuck to her vision of creating a line of gorgeously crafted womenswear that drew inspiration from traditional Chinese motifs. Her tenacity paid off. Today, Shiatzy Chen has 59 boutiques across Asia and one along Paris’ rue Saint-Honoré, earning $70m in annual revenue. The future looks bright: there are plans to double the number of shops over the next three years. The label’s success lies in Wang’s belief in ‘combining Chinese beauty with modern Western cuts and using vanishing Chinese techniques’. The company buys its fabric from the same Italian supplier as Prada and Giorgio Armani. And since 2008, it’s also one of the few Asian labels to show at Paris. www.shiatzychen.com
Founder, Duck Image Studio and GIXIA Group Pictured here with his eco-friendly ‘Thawthat’ defrosting board, made of anodized aluminium with embedded heat transfer pipes, Taiwanese innovator Hsieh founded Duck Image Studio in 1996 after a stint at Acer. He has racked up more trophies than any other Taiwanese designer, including the Red Dot Design Award and the International Design Excellence Award. Combining his interest in movement and science with Eastern philosophies, Hsieh works in a wide range of fields, from consumer products to industrial materials. Among his latest creations are a wind-powered LED bike light, a fabric made out of recycled plastic bottles that can be used to grow plants, and a typhoon-resistant fence. Hsieh is also helping to foster Taiwan’s next generation of design talent: he teaches at Da-Yeh University and runs a material research laboratory. www.duckimage.com.tw, www.gixia-group.com
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TAipei revealed | teatime
whiter than white Back shelf, from left, ‘Promise’ tea set, £262; ‘Awareness’ tea set, £238, both by Cha Cha Thé, www.chachathe.com. ‘String’ tea set with tray, £207, by Gearlab, for Jia Inc, www. jia-inc.com. Silver teapot set, price on request, by Wei-Wen Chung, www.chungsteam.com. ‘Ambula’ sugar pot, part of tea set, £126; ‘Birdie’ tea set, £156, both by Finding Cheska, www.findingcheska.com. ‘Archi’ teapot set, £47; teacup set, £21; all by oast Living, www.toastliving.com. Travel set with teapot and two cups, £47, by Shih Chieh Huang, from Zenique, www.zenique.net. Middle shelf, from left, teapot, £107; fruit bowl, £98; short cup,
pot luck How to take a leaf out of the traditional tea ceremony
Photography frank hülsbömer interiors grace wang writer Annette Tan
Perhaps more than any other tradition in Chinese culture, the tea ceremony stands out for its ubiquitous role in daily life. In fact, it’s hard to think of any social occasion – marriage, Thanksgiving, birthdays, or even business deals – that isn’t marked at some stage by a cup or two of soft green brew. And for the Taiwanese, with their ready access to first-rate tea leaves, tea is an almost sacred bonding ritual that straddles generations and social divide. With its roots steeped in ancient Chinese tea culture, the Taiwanese tea ceremony is as much about celebrating life as it is about rediscovering the beauty and natural harmony
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in the world. Devotees claim that the pureness and simplicity of Cha Tao, the art of tea, brings participants closer to nature and their own true essence. This philosophy explains why every movement of the process of making tea is both purposeful and full of grace, so as to convey respect for its participants and the tea itself. Each step is part of a meditation that induces an unexpected sense of calm. Whichever tea leaf is chosen – in Taiwan, the brew of choice is oolong from Black Dragon Teas – timing is key, from ensuring the correct water temperature and calculating the time it takes for the leaves to brew, to the precise moment that the tea is poured.
Of the many variants, the one favoured by the Taiwanese is typically the Kung Fu tea ceremony (kung fu literally meaning ‘skill’ in Chinese), which requires a fine mastery of the complex process of brewing by repeated rinses of the teapot until the tea reaches its desired strength. Of course, the ceremony requires a stockpile of specialised equipment, designed to enhance the layers of taste and perfume with each mouthful. For the tyro tea-maker, this might include a thermometer and weighing scale, though seasoned practitioners make do with just a brewing pot, kettle, pitcher, tray, towels, tea cups, strainers and tea holders.
£32; tall cup, £41, all by Pili Wu, from Han Gallery, www. han-gallery.com. ‘Lotus’ tea set with covered cup, two teacups and tray, £38, by Toast Living, as before. ‘Persona’ teacups, £75 for set of four, by Office For Product Design, for Jia Inc, as before. ‘Iris’ teacup and teapot, £156 for set, by Finding Cheska, as before. ‘Zendo’ teacup and saucer, £41, by Chun-Hao Chen, from The One Style, www.theonestyle.com. On front shelf, ‘Lace’ bowls, from £188; tea cups, £38 each, all by Gina Hsu, from Han Gallery, as before. ‘Harmony’ tea set, price on request, by 1300 Only Porcelain, www.1300onlyporcelain.com
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taipei revealed | cycling
route master Fashion designer Quoc Pham takes us on his favourite 40km ride in and around Taipei
Photography Jeremy Liebman writer Emma O’Kelly
WHEEL GOOD This page, Pham at Guanshan Riverside Park, crossing one of the floodgates. It is part of the 60km-long Taipei Circle Trail Opposite, sketches and tools in Pham’s Bade Road studio, where he handcrafts traditional touring bicycle shoes in natural leather
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Fashion designer Quoc Pham was born in Vietnam and studied womenswear at London’s Central Saint Martins. In 2009, he moved to Taipei and started designing footwear for discerning urban cyclists. He has studios in London and Taipei, and at weekends he likes to get on his bike and tour the city. Here, he describes his favourite 40km trip around Taipei. ‘Taipei is an easy city to cycle around. The centre is on a grid system, the main avenues are wide and smooth, and most of the museums, galleries and boutiques
are within 30 minutes of each other. The bike ride I love the most takes three hours at a leisurely pace and covers about 40km. ‘I start from my office on Bade Road, and head west, past the Taiwan Beer Factory, one of the best and oldest breweries in Taiwan. It serves the crispest brew in the city. Then I head south to Yongkang Street where there are lots of small restaurants and cafés. One of my favourites is James Kitchen, which serves a fusion of Taiwanese and Hakka food. Its signature dish is a small bowl of rice
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taipei revealed | cycling
street life Taipei’s Da’an district is filled with independent boutiques and cafés, such as the G A I Art Gallery on Qingtian Street (opposite); Cafe Trouvé on Taishun Street (below) and Café Kuroshio on Heping East Road (bottom) Right, Pham in his Bade Road studio Illustrator: Nathalie Lees
doused in fragrant pork oil and soy sauce and topped off with caramelised spring onions. Everyone from all walks of life eats it. A further 50m down the same street is an antiques market, a place to buy collectible jade and vintage teapots. ‘From here, I head toward Xinsheng South Road to the Wistaria Tea House. It’s one of the best and most famous teahouses in Taiwan. In the 1950s, artists, writers and free-thinkers would meet to talk discreetly about politics. Next door is a good little independent art gallery called Mind Set Art Centre. ‘Then it’s a short ride into Gongguan through the Treasure Hill Artist Village where I pick up the path along the Danshui River and head north. I ride for about an hour on the towpath, taking it easy. It’s green, the air is cleaner and I don’t feel like I’m in the city. After about 15km, I stop at the Riverside Café. It’s an amazing converted 20ft container run by a Mrs Chen. She serves the best coffee on the route. ‘From here, hardcore riders keep going 19km north of Danshui to a white sandy beach called Baishawan. I avoid it because, in summer, it gets too crowded. I prefer to discover one of the many other beautiful, secluded beaches that you can only access by bike. At the Riverside Café, I turn back and take a different route home away from
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ride on high In 2009, Taipei launched the U-Bike, its version of the Paris Vélib system and London’s Barclays Cycle Hire. The popcoloured frames, made by Taiwanese firm Giant, make it the cool cousin to its European counterparts, but three years after its launch, how is it faring? ‘There’s still a long way to go,’ explains Mikael Colville-Andersen, a Dane whose blog, Copenhagenize.com, has turned him into a global spokesman for urban cycling. ‘Cycling is very much a leisure activity rather than a serious means of transport,’ he says. Only two per cent of the population of Taipei commutes to work by bike. Even so, there are now 40 U-bike stops offering 1,460 bicycles and attracting up to 4,500 users every day. ‘People are nervous, because buses, scooters and pedestrians tend to clog up the cycle lanes,’ says Pham. Yet Taipei has a thriving fixed-gear scene, part of the street style culture. ‘Our goal is to make cyclists the envy of all those stuck in traffic,’ says Pham. ‘If we do this, we are heading in the right direction.’
the river, which means I can pop into Velo Café. It’s a coffee shop that has the best collection of vintage Italian bikes in Taipei. Then I cross Dazhi Bridge, go through the tunnel under the airport, and detour into the fish market. Inside, there’s a complex called Addiction Aquatic Development that includes a sushi restaurant, a salad bar, a supermarket, florist, and an outdoor fish barbecue. The best thing here, though, is the fresh fruit juice, which is perfect after a sprint over the bridge and through the tunnel. ‘My last stop before I head home is usually at Breakbrake17 (BB17) on Guangfu South Road. It’s owned by a friend of mine, and I pop in for a chat and a quick tune-up. The staff are great and the mechanics are extremely resourceful. I mostly ride around Taipei and do long-distance touring, and I believe a steel-framed bike is best for the job. I bought my single-speed Transfer here. It’s one of their own-brand frames, but they also sell international brands. The biking community is very small, so we all know each other, and being in Taiwan, we are at the centre of it all. ‘Eventually, I leave and head home. After a long, lazy afternoon of biking, my favourite dinner is traditional Taiwan hotpot, which I share with my wife and friends. For me, it’s the perfect way to end the day.’ ∂
Riverside Café g C’S QUO
Velo Café
r an
UR d TO
Fish market
Taiwan Beer Factory
Quoc Pham studio Breakbrake17
James Kitchen Guanshan Riverside Park
Antiques market
Wistaria Tea House Mind Set Art Centre
Treasure Hill
all tied up
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taipei revealed | design
Drawing the lines between Taipei’s best new furniture designs
Photography frank hülsbömer interiors grace wang
pull the strings Clockwise from top left, ‘Chopsticks’ clothes rail, £205, by Andreas Saxer, for Studio Domo, www.studiodomo.net. ‘Ladder’ coat rack, £205, by Yenwen Tseng, www.yenwentseng. com. ‘2 Be A Line’ stools, large, £213; small, £150, both by Sally Lin, sallylin0201@gmail.com. ‘Calligraphy’ screen, £14,902, by Poching Liao, from Han Gallery,
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www.han-gallery.com. ‘XY’ ceiling light, £529, by Meiric Chen, for Seed Design, www.seedlighting. com. ‘Piano’ floor light, £1,065, by Qis Design, www.qisdesign. com. ‘Playful Bird’ pendant light, £90, by Cose Hung, www.41.com. tw. ‘Change A Second’ light, £96, by Sally Lin, as before. ‘S-Cube’ chair, £54, by Miso Soup Design, www.misosoupdesign.com.
‘Bamboo’ table, £2,558, by Nendo, from Han Gallery, as before. ‘Playful Bird’ light; ‘Tea’ side tables, £213 each, all by Cose Hung, as before. ‘Arbora’ candle holders, £655 for set of five, by Finding Cheska, www.findingcheska.com. ‘AI’ light, £147; ‘Young L’ light, £192; ‘Leer’ light, £163, all by Meta Design, www.meta.com.tw
taipei revealed | architecture
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urban oases Pockets of greenery, culture and fun are miraculously popping up all around Taipei’s densely built districts Photography frank Hülsbömer Writer David Frazier
BEITOU LIBRARY Located in the lush Beitou Hot Spring Park, this building by Bio Architecture Formosana was the first to receive the Green Building certification in the country. It features wooden louvres and balconies, a rainwater collection system, and a roof covered in solar panels
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taipei revealed | architecture
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ART YARD Left, located in a Japaneseera building near Yongle Market, in the historic heart of the country’s textile industry, Art Yard is a new cultural centre housing a handful of design shops and cafés, including the elegant South St Delight tearoom and restaurant
TREASURE HILL Far left, a former illegal settlement, Treasure Hill has been transformed by local activists – including Taipei-based architect Marco Casagrande – and the Taipei government into an artists’ village with studios, art galleries and a café, the Treasure Hive
DAAN FOREST STATION The Daan Forest Station is a two-level underground metro stop with a naturally lit hall and sunken garden featuring a circular cascade and plaza. It is part of the east-west Xinyi Line, an extension of Taipei Metro’s Tamsui Line, and is scheduled to open next year
ADDICTION AQUATIC DEVELOPMENT (AAD)
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ouveau-riche Asian cities love to compete with their skylines. Taipei was playing this game a decade ago, when it built Taipei 101, a glass-and-steel pagoda that rises more than half a kilometre into the mists that swirl through the Taipei basin. Between 2004 and 2010, the 509mhigh skyscraper was the world’s tallest building. But now, as Taiwan’s economy shifts from manufacturing towards the hi-tech and service sectors, the city has become less interested in peacocking and more determined to prove itself to be a smart, cultured and livable metropolis in a region not particularly known for these qualities. As architect Kris Yao says, ‘Taipei is no longer in adolescence. It is coming to maturity.’ For the city’s urban designers, this is a strangely exciting time as they get to grips with the task of regenerating the city from within, though it’s still not quite worked out who the major players should be. ‘What’s happening in Taipei right now is very special,’ says Roan Ching-Yueh, an architect and novelist. ‘Most of the buildings in Taipei were built in the 1970s and 1980s, during a period when Taiwan was famous for manufacturing. People were making
Opened by restaurant specialists the Mitsui Group with the aim of bringing a new lease of life to Taipei’s fish market, AAD comprises ten different spaces, from a popular seafood bar to a sushi stall, outdoor grill and hotpot restaurant
a lot of money then and building very quickly, but without much concern for aesthetics. Now, the city is much more mature. People are concerned about culture, lifestyle and renewal. There is a sense that Taipei needs to be renovated. So the question is how? And by whom?’ Unlike many Asian metropolises, Taipei is no longer growing. The population – 2.6 million in the city proper and almost 7 million in the metro area – is stable, or possibly even contracting. Meanwhile, Taiwan enjoys one of the smallest wealth gaps in Asia, as well as one of the most vibrant democracies. Taipei reflects this: it’s a broadly middle-class city made up of a dense, if boring, network of four to 12-storey apartment buildings that stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the tight confines of a mountain basin and cover nearly every patch of available land, even riding up the sides of the encircling hills. The problem with the city’s goal of urban regeneration, then, is finding space. One solution is ‘urban acupuncture’, an idea proposed by Marco Casagrande, a Finnish architect who lectures at Taipei’s Tamkang University. He views the city as a living organism and says
one must locate its pressure points and then use architecture to restore the flow of chi. Casagrande’s own theoretical example was the Ruin Academy, a reclaimed four-storey apartment building that he perforated with holes to channel the rain, and converted into a vertical farm. There have also been broader applications. In 2009, property developer JUT Land Development Group began buying up blocks of old buildings and renting them out for free or cheap to arts groups. Within a couple of years, these tenants will be required to move out and the buildings will be torn down to make way for new builds. In the meantime, however, artists get affordable studio and gallery spaces, while run-down areas begin an organic process of gentrification. JUT’s first such project, Urban Core Art District, lasted two years and housed a dozen groups including Casagrande’s Ruin Academy and the highly influential Taipei Contemporary Art Centre. Now a second site, the Chung Shan Creative Hub, houses more than a dozen independent design studios and galleries. Chung Shan Creative Hub is also part of Taipei City own urban acupuncture programme, Urban
Regeneration Station, or URS (pronounced ‘yours’). Working on its own, or operating in conjunction with developers, the city has set up six URS stations – in Chung Shan, a 2.3ha industrial lot has been reclaimed as a public park. Similarly, traditional infrastructure projects are in the works to create more usable civic areas. A 40,000-seat indoor stadium will be ready by 2014. Two of the city’s main bus stations have recently been moved indoors to occupy the lower floors of shopping malls. Elsewhere, branch libraries have been added. And to keep citizens healthy, Taipei City has added around 60km of bicycle trails and dozens of hectares of parks, mostly at the periphery, on the floodplains of its three rivers. It has built a dozen sports centres and low-cost athletic facilities that usually include gyms, swimming pools, badminton and basketball courts and exercise classrooms. ‘Even if you say Taipei is an ugly city – and for the most part it is – its piecemeal, incremental growth is rooted in the lives of citizens, rather than in the power of the government,’ says Kris Yao, alluding to the subtle quality-of-life
factors that set the Taiwanese capital apart from the region’s other cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. Indeed, Yao and his firm Artech are credited with a modernist revival in Taiwanese architecture. Their work has quietly, but with great impact, been reshaping Taipei’s skyline since the early 1990s. Yao recently designed the new corporate headquarters for mobile phone manufacturer HTC, while adding seven tech company headquarters in Taipei’s fastest-growing district, Neihu. For him, the problem of adding a new building to Taipei is akin to painting on an already crowded canvas. Taipei, he says,
Its quality of life sets Taipei apart from the region’s other metropolises
‘is visually too complicated. So whenever I have the chance to design something, I try not to add to that complexity.’ Other architects are pushing forwards into green technologies. Bio Architecture Formosana recently conducted a study on Taipei’s status as a ‘heat island’ – since concrete buildings absorb heat, the city is 3°C warmer than surrounding areas. One solution was rooftop planting, a strategy used masterfully in their award-winning Beitou Library. Though the library looks like a homage to a Japanese-era timber house, its rooftop is designed as a garden to reduce the heat footprint. The firm also studied wind patterns around the building site, looking for ways to channel natural airflow and lower cooling costs. ‘Right now, an important trend in Taipei is reversing the process of urbanisation,’ says Kuo Ying-Chao, one of Bio’s founding partners. ‘We are finding that within the urban fabric, there is room to reintroduce green areas, ponds and streams, systems that were previously lost. It really just depends on your attitude. When you build a building, your intrusion doesn’t have to diminish the presence of nature around you.’ ∂
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taipei revealed | hotspots
shuanglian market Chosen by Pili Wu, designer Just 25, Wu is already being hailed as one of Taiwan’s major new design talents. His claim to fame is the ‘Plastic Classic’ chair (pictured here next to Wu), a clever hybrid between the ubiquitous red plastic stools that populate Asian street food stalls, and Ming dynasty chairs. The chair is made of beech, and a limited edition features traditional lacquer work. Wu, whose heritage draws from Hakka and Hoklo minorities, is fascinated with hybrids, whether between old and new, or different cultures. His latest creations include a bowl that’s rounded on one side and sloped on the other, and a line of affordable dinnerware inspired by ancient eggshell porcelain. For inspiration, he often trawls the handicraft shops that pack Shuanglian Market. ‘If you’re a designer, it’s the most important street in Taipei.’ piliwu-design.com
streets ahead
Three of Taipei’s top creatives take us to their favourite haunts in the city, from a bustling street market to a leafy garden Photography Jeremy Liebman Writer jennifer chen
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44 South village
spot taipei film house
Chosen by Shu-Chang Kung, architect Kung always knew he would eventually close his acclaimed practice, Aura Architects, and return to academia. ‘I wanted to apply my skills more generally to society,’ says the Harvard alumnus. Now the head of the Graduate Institute of Architecture at Chiao Tung University, Kung works on high-profile public space projects, including the Urban Regeneration Station scheme. Fittingly, his favourite spot in Taipei is an example of urban renewal. Called 44 South Village, this former veterans’ community now hosts a popular Sunday market and Good Cho’s (pictured here), a café/lifestyle store that showcases the work of emerging local talents. For Kung, it is a great example of what urban regeneration can do: ‘They’ve kept a lot of the old details, so former residents can still recognise the place. It connects the old and the new.’
Chosen by Rita Chang, curator Educated in Taiwan and the US, Chang is a champion of Taiwanese artists. After serving as the chief curator at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Chang helped launch the Fubon Art Foundation’s ‘Very Fun Park’, a festival that showcases the work of young artists in alternative spaces. While her energies these days are focused on the Asian Cultural Council Taiwan Foundation, she still curates shows and consults on major public art initiatives. Launching next year is an ambitious project to turn part of a 5km canal in the southern city of Tainan into a platform for artists. To unwind, Chang visits Spot Taipei Film House at least once a week. The former residence of the US ambassador, Spot is home to an art-house cinema, café, garden and bookshop. ‘I always go for a walk around the area – it’s an old quarter in Taipei and it has so many possibilities.’
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taipei revealed | hotspots
Ad by Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs