Taipei: Dynamic Renovation Revives Old Districts

Yeh I-chun　/　photos Chin Hung-hao　/　tr. by Phil Newell

January 2016

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Dadaocheng, which sits next to the shimmering Danshui River, was once the most prosperous district in Taipei. Open to the world, it was where new ideas and trends entered Taiwan. It was a neighborhood of passions and ideals, with room to hold merchants and common folk, symbolizing “Formosa” in an age of prosperity.

For a time Dadaocheng was in decline, decaying, decrepit with age. But starting in the last decades of the 20th century, governments and citizens began promoting preservation of old houses and streets, there has been a revival of business, and many creative and cultural enterprises have moved in. Today you can again feel the energy in the air in old Taipei. But is it really possible for tradition and innovation to blend together in complete harmony?

Tracing the origins of Taipei, you have to mention Mengjia, Dadaocheng, and the Old Walled City (which by the 20th century no longer had actual walls, but was still known by the old boundaries). These three settlements formed the embryo of Taipei’s development. Mengjia was founded on the banks of the Danshui River, and was known as the third most important business and shipping center in Taiwan after only Tainan and Lukang. But siltation of the harbor area plus an unwelcoming attitude to outsiders led to Mengjia eventually being upstaged by Dadaocheng.

Dadaocheng got its start in 1853. Residents here were more willing than those in Mengjia to accept outsiders, and it successfully developed into a thriving commercial neighborhood.

Dadaocheng was at the forefront of everything novel in Qing-Dynasty Taiwan (before 1895). It was home to Taipei’s first street of “Western-style” houses; to Taiwan’s first government-backed school; to the first government-run technical college (an academy for telegraphy); to the first train station; to an arsenal/factory that made weapons and railroad equipment; and to many consulates. Back in those days Dadaocheng was the economic center of Taipei, while the Old Walled City was the administrative center. In the Japanese era (1895–1945), Dadaocheng was best known for teahouses, cloth shops, Chinese herbal pharmacies, and sellers of sundry foods, and for the luxurious homes built by merchants. The hub of the Japanese colonial administration was within the Walled City, while Dadaocheng was dominated by Chinese businessmen, forming a juxtaposition or opposition between the two.

Jou Yi-cheng, owner of ArtYard, an enterprise that renovates old buildings in Dadaocheng and rents space in them to cultural and creative businesses, suggests that the Golden Age of this area came during the 1920s, under Japanese rule. It was where Chiang Wei-shui founded the Taiwanese Cultural Association, and was the most progressive place in Taiwan in terms of culture and political thought. Chiang, Lian Heng, and Xie Xuehong all opened bookstores here, and it was a center of local identity, intellectual exchange, and entrepreneurship.

The Hancheng Chinese Medicine Shop on Dihua Street is a fine example of what is known as the “Baroque” style of “Western mansions” from the era of Japanese rule.

Mixing old and new

By the end of World War II, however, Dadaocheng’s port on the Danshui had been destroyed by bombing and the area’s days of glory were never to return. Once-luxurious houses took on a desolate air amidst the deserted streets. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that things began to change. Both government and citizens grew more conscious about preservation, and the city began offering incentives for residents to maintain old houses. The city also launched the revitalization of the Chinese New Year Products Market, and the renovation and re-use of old buildings, bringing back some of the vitality of the old days.

Places with stories to tell will always attract people to tell them. Hsu Yi-hung, a PhD student in architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who personally hand-drew and published A Cultural Map of Dadaocheng, says: “In the past tourists and young people didn’t come here, and it was always dark and moribund.” But, he observes, since 2011 a number of enterprises like ArtYard have moved in, and the area has steadily brightened up. Hsu remarks: “It’s very important that young people get a chance to appreciate the aesthetics of old architecture; this is the only way they will treat their own past as important.”

The categories which ArtYard has incorporated into its business model include teahouse, coffee shop, ceramics and porcelain shop, cloth merchant, bookstore, fruit vendor, handicrafts mart, and small-scale live theater. Jou Yi-cheng remarks: “When I started out I specifically wanted five lines of business that have long traditions in this area—tea, cloth, farm products (including Chinese herbal medicine), live theater, and architecture. We don’t have any type of business in the ArtYard family that has not had a presence in Dadaocheng over the last 150 years.”

The energy in this neighborhood, with a cityscape combining traditional firms with new creative and cultural shops, is palpable. It has become so well received, in fact, that some second-generation heirs to old businesses have decided to return to take up the baton and keep their companies up and running. On our visit to the area we saw old firms selling things like rattan furniture or farm and gardening implements that had—as a result of the inspiration provided by the newcomers—revamped their layouts and lighting to make their stores more welcoming and more accessible for idle browsing. Now they are proving attractive to the many day-trippers and tourists who make up the passing foot traffic, and are especially popular with foreigners, because these are unique places of the kind that they can see only in Taiwan.

Hsu Yi-hung, author of a book on Taipei under Japanese colonial rule, has also produced the hand-drawn A Cultural Map of Dadaocheng, an extremely popular guide to the cultural and historical sights of the neighborhood. (photo by Yeh I-chun)

Reviving a cultural vibe

Let’s leave Dadaocheng now and head to the Chengnan area. Here, during the era of Japanese rule, the colonial regime developed a comprehensively planned district, which is called “Chengnan” because it is just south of the Walled City (cheng means “wall” and nan means “south”). The well-laid-out urban plan—which included Japanese-style housing, a riverside area, and open green parks—not only provided Japanese with a comfortable residential zone, it laid the foundations for the development of modern Taipei. The residents of Chengnan included many intellectuals, as well as government employees (military personnel, teachers, civil servants). Much of that aura of the intelligentsia and the elite remains in the many buildings from that era which still exist. Passers-by often stop in their tracks to admire them, especially those that have been renovated and put to new uses.

For example, the former Japanese-style restaurant named Kishu An has been transformed into today’s Forest of Literature, inheriting the role of cultural soul of the Chengnan area. “Qingtian 76” was originally the home of a professor at Taihoku Imperial University, but now is a restaurant that offers frequent guided tours. And Jinhua Street is at the center of the Taipei City Government’s “Old Houses” movement, which aims to renovate Japanese-style structures and re-invent them as cultural spaces, so that there will be even more opportunities for people to appreciate the beauty of these old buildings.

The restored “Nishikicho” area of former Japanese housing is particularly interesting. It exhibits old façades from different periods, allowing people to understand the aesthetics of space in Taiwan from different eras. Moreover, with the permission of and under the supervision of the city government, an observation tower will be erected here, so that in the future visitors will be able to look out over all the surrounding old houses. This novel design approach is intended to give people a richer, deeper experience and understanding of the old neighborhood.

From Dadaocheng to Chengnan you will discover that the relationship between humans and urban space has never been a simple one. The current trends not only break through old paradigms, they also—under the precondition of respecting history—revive old cultural vibes and encourage entire communities to take on a core identity with which residents can identify.

In the end, only people can bring old houses back to life and keep old streets intact, thereby keeping the stories of the past alive for future generations. There is a thread that links the past and the future, that goes back to the very first Han Chinese pioneers who came here. No doubt they too had hope that their past could be “renovated” to make a better future.

The cultural and creative collective ArtYard 2013 (one of a family of renovated buildings dedicated to cultural and creative businesses and to performance/exhibition spaces) was built utilizing a traditional “shop house” structure on Dihua Street.

The LuGuo Café is located on the second floor of the ArtYard 2011 building. (photo by Yeh I-chun)

The Xia-Hai City God Temple is a major center of faith for residents of Dadaocheng.

Taipei City has been working hard to preserve and renovate old buildings. The “Kishu An Forest of Literature,” constructed as a restaurant in the era of Japanese rule (1895–1945), is now a center for cultural and creative activity. (photo by Jimmy Lin)