驀然回首，那樓還在街頭轉角處

驀然回首，那樓還在街頭轉角處
沒多久前, 故事中城中區那家人之中的"弟弟"自加拿大回台, 一頓晚飯吃了四五個鐘頭, 聊不完的塵封往事, 卻是對當年那段"家事"彼此會心地迴避不提, 回家後難免想起這篇陳年紀錄, ...

多年前6月裡那個週末，我們單位搞到台北辦國際講座，與同事們一起忙著張羅接待，終於圓滿結束了。 同事邀我搭他便車回台中，我說也好，但他要先回趟老家帶東西，我說無妨，就坐上他的車了。 他長我兩三歲，以前聽說過他父母是師大教授退休，果然他朝著和平東路走，過了師大校門，右轉進入師大路，我的記憶浮了上來---哎呀，龍泉街吶，以前這路邊可都是牛肉麵攤啊！ 這也是同事他少年生活的一部份，我才起勁地跟他一搭一唱地說起從前---我當年讀高中就住在附近，常跑來吃牛肉麵，那龍泉街整條右手邊都是麵攤，都是外省老鄉料理的，也沒個店面，都是撐起帆布棚子，擺個爐子，放上大鍋，加上幾塊木板工作台，三兩張小桌子配幾支凳子，每個攤子好像總是擠滿人。 每次點麵要小碗的，端上來可都是一大碗公，每次再三吩咐不要太辣，但是麵湯上總要漂浮著一層紅油，吃不到半碗，辣氣直衝頭頂，頭皮都要麻到發顫，吃那一碗公的麵湯，要流個兩碗公的汗水。 後來到台中上大學，大二有一回到台北，整條攤販街都不見了，改成寬敞的師大路。

沿著師大後頭圍牆開進一條小巷子，同事指著一家攤滿一地書的店家說，這是全台灣最便宜的書店，什麼書都有，只有內行人才知道，這條街我似乎也走過不知多少回，但不記得有這家書店，同事他住這附近，當然他知道這些事。 這巷子走到盡頭，我突然認得了---浦城街啊！ 同事說是的，他就住在浦城街口，我記得有家煤炭行，不知還在不在？ 他說還在啊，沒賣炭了。 他把車停在浦城街頭，走進第一條巷子，他家就在巷口的公寓底層。

我走下車，煤炭行就在對面巷子口，三層樓的房子滿滿地佔住巷口，二樓三樓沿街面都圍著圈陽台，陽台邊開滿窗戶，窗框都漆上綠色，還真是一點沒變的老樣子，旁邊老房子都拆掉，蓋起了一棟棟四或五層公寓，只有它還屹立不變。 那時炭行店面常是空蕩蕩的，角落放一台磅秤，地面總是飄散著一些黑炭屑，我就是繞過磅秤，走上後方的樓梯，找那位曾大姐…

同事拿好東西出來，我們一起上車，他說難得看我這樣失神的樣子，這棟樓到底藏了什麼秘密？ 我說我編個故事給你聽，你就姑且聽一聽吧---話說當年有個楞小子，從鄉下來到台北念高中，被家人安排在城中區住下來，卻跟房東女兒談起戀愛了，一學期結束就被房東掃地出門，搬到福州街住，女孩已經高三必須準備聯考，高一的這小子感情沒著落，書也念不下。 幸好有位念師大快畢業的大姐，是這女孩姊姊的同學，特地幫忙照顧孤單的他。 這大姐當時也在女孩家住過一陣。 有一回，女孩和他為她的寶貝狗狗洗完澡後，一起在二樓通舖邊曬太陽，這大姐走過對他們嫣然一笑，也就這樣知道他們的秘密。…

…這大姐告訴被趕出門的這男孩，不能學紅樓夢的賈寶玉那樣兒女情長，要為自己的前途打拼，她跟他約定，每天放學後到浦城街找她，她帶他進師大圖書館唸書，圖書館門口有人看守，沒有師大學生證是進不了的。 就這樣，那男孩一整學期的晚上都讓這大姐帶進師大圖書館唸書，暑假來了，他沒等到女孩考完就回鄉下去了，陰錯陽差地那段情就糊裡糊塗過去了，這位大姐也不知去向…只知她那時男朋友是念牙醫的，有一次他在她房間書桌上看見一個牙齦色的心形項鍊，她說是那念牙醫的男友親手做的…

這棟綠窗樓房藏了男孩的兩段情，過了將近四十年，竟然還好端端地坐落在那街角上。 同事聽了我的故事，朝我笑一笑，沒再說什麼，我卻恍惚地回到當年的老台北---那是可以讓高一男生每晚陪高三女生帶著狗狗逛中山堂廣場的時代、可以讓他們從開封街走到圓環遠東戲院看「學生王子」的時代、讓他從苗栗上火車帶上一支紅色玫瑰花一路到台北(旁邊還有一位阿兵哥一路描畫他的花)再坐上淡水線慢車再到北投換小火車到新北投到她的高中看她的時代。 那是可以在解出一道化學方程式練習後騎上自行車上街狂飆的時代(煞車不靈時還可以在街上用急轉彎代替煞車)，那是可以翹掉最後一堂課就為了要搭上那位漂亮車掌小姐的公車的時代，那是接到情書後與寢室老友上街叫碗豬腳麵加滷蛋加盤豬耳朵大肆慶祝的時代。

我要在三十多年後，才逐漸在指導學生論文時，把一個小男生的台北跟一般大家的台北連接起來---原來他上高一時正是台北達到一百萬人口改制院轄市第二年； 原來他在台北那三年，正是白先勇寫作「台北人」那幾篇短篇小說的時候，也是莊喆、劉國松的「五月畫會」最活躍的時候，是周夢蝶在明星咖啡館擺攤、林懷民在野人咖啡館鬼混的時候； 那幾年蓋起了中山北路的嘉新大樓、頂好廣場邊的香檳大廈，還有忠烈祠、圓山大飯店、松山機場大廈； 那時，忠孝東路、敦化南北路和仁愛路、信義路、和平東路東段都正在拓寬闢建； 而他離開台北到台中念大學時，正是他大半高中生活所在---信義路、和平東路、羅斯福路還有牯嶺街的違章建築要被全部拆光前的時刻，也是台北第一批七層電梯公寓正興建的時候； 甚至他剛離開台北，他上下學騎自行車經過兩旁楊柳夾道的新生南路塯公圳就被加蓋掉了。

我回頭想到這週末忙著辦講座的地方---敦化南路上的超高層大飯店，正是三十幾年前那個高中生坐著三十路公車顛簸到六張犁找朋友時的那一片稻田，中山北路上十四層高的嘉新大樓是當時台北市最高的建築物，今天「台北101」標示這個都會的新天空線，捷運系統每天流水般地轉運幾十萬人不停地移動，現在的年輕人開始進入另一種全新的生活型態，他們的子孫似乎將也承續著同樣的方式，只是他們已不再能想像他們僅僅上一代的人在同樣年紀時的台北生活，只有沉默的老建築物，承载著好幾代人的回憶，遺落在城市裡不常被注意到的地方。 今天的這一代與上一代已經斷裂得難以接合，像我這樣該歸類於「上一代」的人甚至也都早把自己過往遺忘得差不多了。 其實，早些年我也尋找過以前屬於自己青春故事的地方，但總是洩氣得不得了，開封街巷子裡那棟木造房子拆了，中華商場也拆了，中山堂廣場重新設計過，北淡線變成捷運線了，新北投車站被當作博物館收藏起來了。 又過了那麼多年，若不是那天巧遇那三層樓的綠窗房子，我或許根本就忘記自己曾經是一位待過台北的高中生，我的履歷表也不會記錄這段事情，而確實那天我非常用力想卻想不起曾大姐的名字。

我與同事說，當年若不是這位曾大姐照顧，我可能就懵懂地四處壓馬路、混彈子房、或莫名奇妙地消沉下去，影響我們一生的貴人常常不知從哪裡冒出來、又不知如何消失去，但若不是這棟樓房提醒，我幾乎已經忘卻這位自己的少年貴人。 從此之後可好，這城市的變化再也不至那麼劇烈，這一代或以後的人是太幸福了，他們的城市會裝滿他們的記憶(假如他們還願意生產記憶的話)，我這代的人最大的傷痛是半生的記憶都已失去空間場景，只能壓縮起來藏在心裡深處，不知不覺就忘掉了，連什麼時候忘掉都不自覺了。

一個月前為一個論壇跑去參觀北投圖書館, 新北投車站所在位址已變成路中廣場, 只有捷運車廂裡點綴著歷史照片而已, 餓了上到廣場邊二樓一家麵館, 窗邊望著曾是車站的地方發呆,耳邊竟然傳來安迪威廉斯的老情歌, 匆忙吃完麵就逃下樓去, 免得再聽到湯姆瓊斯的嘶吼, 就要消受不了了...

Architecture of Sun, Moon and Stars:
A Regional Perspective of Modernity in Taiwan 1661-2011

本論文於2011年5月12日發表於國立新加坡大學建築系主辦的EAAC
2011 (東亞建築國際會議)
_____________________________________________________________________

Abstract
The modernity experienced in East Asia seems to have long been entangled with three conflicting and yet mutually affecting ideations, so-called enlightenment, identity and imagination. Metaphorically, they form a trilogy of architectural development--- of the sun, moon and stars, in building up the new world order in this region.

China as the dominant sun in East Asia started going drastically in decline in the second half of the 19th century, and at the same time Japan rose as a newly facilitated modern power in this region. China lost the war in 1895 to Japan and ceded Taiwan to the new power of the sun flag. Japan is commonly depicted as the last empire of the modern world, but it is in fact the only moon-empire reflecting the light mostly from the sun-like European enlightenment. Under the double shining of indirect enlightenment through China and Japan, Taipei peculiarly experienced its first modernization with the city-wall building in the late Ching dynasty during 1880-82 and soon ___________________________________________________________________________
Contact Arthur: Shih-wei Lo, Professor, Department of Architecture, Tungahi University
Postal address: Department of Architecture, Tunghai University, Taichung 407, Taiwan,. R.O.C.
Tel: 00886-4-2359 0263 ex 11, 69 Fax: 00886-4-2359 5581
e-mail: shiweilo@thu.edu.tw
later the city-wall removal in 1905 by Japanese colonial ruling.

Modernity experienced in East Asia gets in company tightly with wars: the Sino-Nippon War (1895, 1931-1945), the Nippon-Russia War (1905), the Civil War of China (1945-49), Korea War (1950), and Vietnam War (1965-75). The wars bring forth Diaspora---the displacement and the nostalgia of Japanese moving to China, Taiwan and Southeastern Asia, of Chinese (the revolutionist R.O.C. government) fleeing to Taiwan, and of Vietnamese to Hong Kong and Australia. During the Post-War period, the modernization in these areas tended to thrust themselves into the world division of labor and achieve prosperity as those advanced countries did beforehand. The identity issue thus tends to involve with that the mentality of the moon in homeland being regarded brighter always mixes with the fawning attitude of foreign moon (especially that of advanced countries) looking more round.

After the 1970s and 1980s when the self-conscious movements caring for the lived land drew popular attention, the East Asian region picks up its own momentum in re-imagineering the self. Olympic game hosted in Seoul (1988) and Pu-dung development in Shanghai (1990-) become the hallmarks for national imagineering, In Taiwan, the lifting of martial law in 1987 also triggers off daring imagination of civic concern. Different from the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle claimed by Japan as a colonial ambition in the 1940, the new wave of imagination in East Asia since the 1990s has revealed in a multiple modes. The democratic development in the region fosters constellations of public spaces in local areas helping check against the impact of globalization.

The architecture in Taiwan inherits the heritage of imperialism/revolution, colonialism/nationalism, and dictatorship/democracy over the past century. Its history can be more dramatic if tracing back to Koxinga’s victory on the Dutch in 1661 and his taking back Taiwan from them as the base for his marine kingdom in East Asia. The recent development of the architecture in Taiwan, thanks to the openness and freedom enjoyed by the society, seems to retrieve back the wild thrust and energy of Koxinga’s trade-war cruise on the East Asian Sea.

Keywords: modernity, enlightenment, Identity, imagination
___________________________________________________________

Foreword
The modernity experienced in East Asia seems to have long been entangled with three conflicting and yet mutually affecting ideations, so-called enlightenment, identity and imagination. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that the modern was taken by this region as an alien influence from outside--- specifically from the Western powers--- through imperialism and colonialism, in which rationality, science and technology formed an overwhelming beam of enlightenment to the society then still having been laden with traditional value. The long last debate on tradition and modern caused the internal tension and aroused a bitter process of identifying the national self against the modern impact. From the 1980s on, the East Asia picked up its momentum to fit well to the global division of labor. Enjoying the economic success and societal transformation, the East Asian gradually dared to imagine its own future---i.e. its own version of modernity. And the image- rebuilding endeavor prevailed in the leading countries of the region, such as hosting international events such as Olympic Game or World Exposition.

Taiwan, an island at the very strategic location in East Asia, experienced quite a unique but also not less generic trajectory of spatial development in its modernization history. The immigrant society of the island welcomed the official recognition of its status as the last one of the provinces of the Ching Empire in 1886. But it was ceded as a colony to Japan by China in 1895 and experienced the colonial ruling for the later 50 years. Civilization and enlightenment (文明開化) like the sun’s glare and coercion was rhetorically imposed on the colonized subjects.

Due to the Civil War, the Republic of China found by the revolutionary Nationalist Party was defeated by the Communist and withdrew to Taiwan. Over two million of population came to Taiwan. Different from immigrants mainly originated from Fu-chien and Kuan-tung during the earlier period, those who fled after 1949 to Taiwan left their homes from all over the vast Mainland. Taipei then became the most Chinese city around the world. The modernization on the island from then on mixed the dual modes of mentality--- home and voyage, fulfillment and transition, different but not dissociated from European’s metropolitan experience on modernity . And Taiwan may go even further with both icons for its identity pursuing---the brighter moon of the homeland (月是故鄉明) and the rounder moon of the advanced country (外國月亮比較圓).

After lifting the martial law and the ban on party organization in 1987, Taiwan moved toward a more open and democratic development. Multiplicity cultivated in social and cultural spheres led to a more diversified expression in both artistic and architectural fields, just like the starry sky in the night. Some “National Doorway Projects” designed by global super stars and many well-done public spaces built locally in rural areas unveil a new prospect of self-imagineering. The publicness constituted in such multiple manners in the city and countryside paves the way for Taiwan to a more decent and civic society.

Enlightenment, identification and imagination thus form respectively a metaphorical trilogy of architectural development structuring and structured by the sun, the moon and the stars. They are not employed separately to the clear-cut periodization of the modern development in Taiwan. Rather, each of them may overlap or permeate one another and they together just form an analytical framework for investigating the modernity experienced in Taiwan in terms of Architecture.

I. The ‘Sea of Islands’ in Early Modern Era
Around 1551, Portuguese called out ‘Ilhas Formosa’, i.e. lovely and handsome, while sailing along the island now named Taiwan. It appeared on the map drawn by the Portuguese in 1554 and since then it witnessed the busy marine activity in the East and South China Sea over the later one and half century, which had been joined by the Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch ships and fleets.

Koxinga (Zeng Cheng-kung), son of pirate and the general of the dying Ming dynasty, defeated the Dutch in 1661 and seized Taiwan from the rule of Netherland. This was a very rare record for the Asian to gain a victory over the European with early modern force. His fleet was active in marine trade among Xiamen, Kinmen, Penghu and Tainan, and far reached Nagasaki and Manila. In protecting the trade profit, he maintained a naval strength against the Japanese and European powers for several decades. The historical contribution of his rule was making Taiwan not another Philippine or Indonesia, colonized by Spanish or Dutch for three centuries long, but the society run by Han people. His force haunted over the ‘sea of islands’ which networked ports-cities in Philippine, South China, Taiwan and Japan.

Although he died next year to his arrival at Taiwan and his kingdom was destroyed by Ching dynasty in 1683, Zeng’s rule brought forth a Chinese-styled city construction integrating the defensive-logistic architecture of the Age of Exploration: Spanish and Dutch battery, fort like Zeelandia (now An-ping), and trade city like Provintia (now Sakam Mansion赤崁樓). In other words, Zeng’s rule incorporated the fort-based architecture structuring and structured by the ‘sea of islands’ into the city-based architecture of the ‘island on the sea’.

The mixture of traditional city and European city prevailed to the second half of the 19th century. Trade companies and consulate buildings of stone masonry construction appeared in port city (Fig. 1). Different from the propping and framing logic of the traditional East Asian architecture, the stone architecture of arched openings and carved cornices, of solid and voluminous outlook, defined the alien cityscape developed ashore the East Asian Sea.

However, the period over the whole Ching dynasty pertained to the age of refuse of the ‘sea of islands’. The marine-ignorant China prohibited trade activity by sea. The vision of ‘sea of islands’ thus narrowed down to only ‘island on the sea’, though the island (Taiwan) was officially administrated as a province---the last one---of China in 1886. Since then, the urbanization of Taiwan gradually shifted northward to Taipei where revealed urgent significance in defensive and economic terms.

The island-wide development from Tainan to Taipei conveyed a message of paradigm shift of the world view: from ‘conquering the sea of islands’ to ‘defending the island on the sea’. The latter implied the prey of strategic importance coveted by imperialist powers, while the former the naval strength cruising over the oceanic territory for its own profit. Ching emperor’s destroying Zeng’s marine power proved his withdrawal from the modern prospect and eventually invited the loss of the War on the sea to Japan in 1895.

II. Urban Space of Enlightenment
China as the dominant sun in East Asia started going drastically in decline in the second half of the 19th century, and at the same time Japan rose as a newly facilitated modern power in this region. When the situation became clear that to take over Taiwan meant to get control on the East Asian sea of islands, Taiwan turned to a trophy won by Japanese after the war of 1895. Japan is commonly depicted as the last empire of the modern world, but it is in fact the only moon-empire reflecting the light mostly from the source of the European enlightenment. Under the double shining of indirect enlightenment, Taipei peculiarly experienced its first modernization with the city-wall building in the late Ching dynasty during 1880-82 and soon later the city-wall removal in 1905 by Japanese colonial ruling.

In the Mainland China, the revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen overthrowing the Ching dynasty in 1911-12 was itself a radical move of enlightenment. This was manifested by the design of the national flag---the white sun, the blue sky, and the bloody land as the price paid. The vision for the newly born Republic of China was somewhat projected on Nan-king Capital Plan (1929) and Great Shanghai Plan (1929) . The two projects, characterized by axial layout and monumental nodal buildings, seem to be influenced by the “City Beautiful Movement” inaugurated at Columbia Exposition in Chicago (1893), while deviated from the uniform cityscape, infinite vista and unlimited expansion of the Großstadt model proposed by Otto Wagner (1911) .

The slogan of ‘civilization and enlightenment’ applied to the urbanization in Taiwan was embodied in projects including City Reform, City Plan and public constructions. All the projects implemented demonstrated seemingly the unified endeavors to achieve the colonial/exploitative goal from the ruler’s point of view.

City Reform and City Plan as Modern Projects
The Ching Governor of Taiwan Liu Ming-chuang administrated from 1886 to 1892 and executed some utility improvement---constructions for electric lighting, sewage system, street pavement, shop houses, and schools (for learning Western and aboriginal knowledge ). He also paved railway from Ki-long to Hsin-chu. Although he did not succeed in the measurement of land, he did try to develop a modern urbanity with the traditional Chinese city model.

During the Japanese rule, the modernization had been promoted through industrialization, institutionalization and urbanization in the island-wide scale. The inter-city network by railway and highway transportation was soon built up and the intra-city circulation became an urgent issue. The city walls were demolished. The grid street pattern was introduced into cities to replace the traditional street pattern, and the winding narrow streets were straightened and widen. The corner building type first appeared in the newly built cityscape, while the street corner was insignificant in the traditional city formation.

The Urban Reform projects were implemented mostly on the basis of the existing walled city structure, in addition to several newly established cities like Taichung, Huan-lien. In the later colonial period, the big-scaled city plans were proposed, such as the Taipei City Plan 1932. The straight and broad parkway system provoked a new vision for motor-vehicle traffic and the large-scaled parks assigned provided urban amenity and contingent function.

Because Taiwan was the first colony of Japan which was the last empire, the colonial city construction in Taiwan can be taken as an experiment for Japanese to apply the European model. It may indeed fit for the higher capacity of urban flow, but it is also undeniable that behind such reconstruction of the city saw the top-down coercion and control on the native people, by the name of modern rationality.

Primary Buildings of Monumentality
The Government General Building was completed in 1919. It was designed with the European style, located at the Baroque city node with its volume swelled by the ‘poché’ principle, e.g. to build massive appearance with void space inside as courtyard. All primary buildings followed this European principle to be looked monumental and repressive (Fig. 2). Only those for residential use were built in detached or semi-detached form in the middle of the garden.

Most of these paternalist public buildings were designed to orient toward east and north, against the traditional orientation system which mainly directing the primary buildings toward the south or west. They topologically conflicted against the traditional city order, and on the other hand also brought forth a sense of kind of liberation (Fig. 4).

In 1931, Japan set up Manchuria as another colony. This time they acted more confidently to put the Nipponese style onto public buildings such as Ministries of Finance, Juridiction, and Headquarter of Guan-tung Army (Fig. 3). Even in these cases, the Japanese national form was superficially applied to the appearance with their planar layout still derived from the Beaux Art practice .

H. Yatuska argues that the subjectivity of the colonized is a complicated issue and one of the truths he fails to see is that only because those built by Japanese were actually copies from European styles so that they survive to even now. If those primary buildings built in Nipponese style like those constructed in Machuria, even though achieving high quality in architectonic sense like Chu-joe Hsia admits , it doesn’t seem they could live out the Nationalist’s ruling which had fought against Japanese for more than two decades. The architectural form of the Government General Building in Taipei, as an example, with eclectic European style was ironically acceptable without irritation to Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese for the building’s signifying progress and advance in genuine sense to all of them.

This means what the colonial city and architecture built by Japanese realized in Taiwan projected in fact a moon-like mode of enlightenment which only reflected the ‘sun’-shine from the European forerunners. Only when occupying Manchuria in 1931, Japan as the last empire gradually picked up its confidence as a new rising sun in East Asia. That is what Taiwan has been taken as a unique experiment base means against its particular historical context.

Regionalism and Eclecticism
Kaolu Inote was the top officer during the colonial period in charge of island-wide construction affairs. He completed several distinctive works including Chien-kung Shrine (1928), Police Union Building (1929), Teacher’s Union Building (1930) and Assembly Hall (1936). He founded the first architectural association in Taiwan issuing the first professional magazine and promoting the scientific and vernacular understanding on architecture.

His design of Chien-kung Shrine was freed of Shin-tou style inherent in Japanese national emblem. Inote applied instead the eclectic dome and arched window to the shrine’s appearance. He added a pool in front of the shrine for fire emergency and created cool ventilation for the inner courtyard. The colonnade attached to the front of the shrine met the need to shed off strong sunshine . This case revealed Inote’s concern for the regional characteristics of tropical climate.

As for the architectural attitude of Taiwanese, there were few cases showing resistance against the colonial aesthetic practice. Some of well-to-do’s houses mixed hierarchical spatial order of the traditional courtyard house with the stone construction of foreign mansion (洋樓). They were the architecture of eclecticism rather than resistance, let alone criticism.

III. Identification: Cultural Physiognomy and Modern Form
Modernity experienced in East Asia gets in company tightly with wars: the Sino-Nippon War (1895, 1931-1945), the Nippon-Russia War (1905), the Civil War of China (1945-49), Korea War (1950), and Vietnam War (1965-75). The wars bring forth Diaspora---e.g. the displacement and the nostalgia of Japanese moving to China, Taiwan and Southeastern Asia, of Chinese (the revolutionist R.O.C. government) fleeing to Taiwan and Hong Kong, and of Vietnamese to Hong Kong and Australia. The melancholic sense of loss associated with the modernity for East Asian who suffered the war connotes not just the homeland lost in terms of psychic and societal meaning but rather the loss of the home in physical and national sense.

Over the unstable period of displacement and its eventual emplacement, the involvement with struggle between the tradition and the modernity kept in close pace. On the one hand, the immigrants swayed between the unreachable homeland far away and gradual recognition of the homeland here and now; on the other hand, the modernization in company with the Westernization broke down the tie with the tradition. The identity issue thus tends to involve that the mentality of the moon in homeland being regarded brighter (月是故鄉明) always mixes with the fawning attitude of foreign moon looking more round (外國月亮比較圓).

The Sinic Revival
For consoling the collective nostalgia and strengthening its legitimacy, the Nationalist government promoted the Chinese Revival Movement in 1960s. Those primary buildings in Taipei such as Grand Hotel (adapted from Taiwan Shrine by Japanese)(Fig. 5), History Museum (adapted from Commodity Exhibition Hall by Japanese), Palace Museum, Science Pavilion, Martyr Shrine, Chung-shan Building, Taipei Park…etc. were built in Chinese palace or garden style, which was regarded as the Chinese reactive model against modernity since the founding era of the Republic of China, say, dated back to the Chapel at Yen-jing University in Beijing design by American architect Henry K. Murphy.

Chinese Culture College was funded in 1962 with its early buildings designed in Chinese palace form and laid out on the Ming-tang Schema , such as Da-chen Building, Da-jen Building, Da-te Building, etc. on campus. This trend continued to cover the projects like Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (1972) and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Complex Park (1980-89).

The collective nostalgia of the 1950-80s in Taiwan, entangled with the melancholic feeling that “the moon in homeland is brighter”, mandated those Revivalist buildings and subtly joined to entrench the authoritarian structure under nationalism. The whole situation seemed to accord with the Cold War disposition in East Asia, under the strong beam shed from the rising sun of the US.

However, the Revivalist schemata were anyhow emplaced later onto the planar layout of the new building type---the high-rise apartment building. The quarterly-detached apartment high-risers, square and decent in form, were welcomed by those newly rich buyers and represented an emplacement in dwelling for those displaced after 1949. Lincoln Mansion (1973) and Bai-li Mansion (1973) were among the well known examples. To sum up, Taipei 101 (2004) designed by C. Y. Lee was deemed as the hallmark par excellence and the very last of this trend. And, at this moment, for those displaced immigrants and their offspring, the homeland in Mainland became the other land while the other land of Taiwan became eventually their homeland---the moon here and now is brightest than what so ever.

The Modern Tectonic
As a late-comer in the contest of modernization, to catch up with the advanced countries has long been set up by Taiwan government as the supreme goal of national development. Most of Taiwanese elites studied abroad and they gained high respect and opportunity when they returned home. During the period of 1950s-70s, to some extent, modernization tended to be regarded equivalent to Westernization. That is what the saying ‘foreign moon looks more round’ means.

Against the background when the US aid contributed to the burgeoning modernization in Taiwan, the establishment of Tunghai University and Chung-hsing Village were two significant landmarks demonstrating the orthodox mode of modernity for the island. Tunghai University was sponsored by the United Board in US which concluded 13 Christian universities moved away from Mainland China. The campus design was committed to I.M. Pei, C.K. Chen, and C.K. Chang, and their modernist scheme was realized during 1955-63 into the epochal paradigm in Taiwan. Luce Chapel co-designed by them also became the master piece rarely overshadowed even in East Asia.

To avoid air raid, Taiwan Provincial government was decided in 1955 to move to the Middle Taiwan. The whole plan was worked out by the staffs of the government with the conceptual model of the Garden City. The site of 105 hectares was laid out with picturesque winding roads and cul-de-sac system, and filled loosely with detached and semi-detached houses. Surprisingly, the village was equipped with a complete sewage system which was the first realization in Taiwan (Fig. 6).

Chung-hwa Shopping Arcade built in Taipei in Zeilenbau box-like form was completed in 1961, which was deemed at that time as the successful case of modern architecture. Yin-bian-duan Redevelopment Project published in 1972, though not realized, revealed the ambition of the central government to build a brand new city center by the hand of a multi-national company from Los Angeles (Fig. 7). As a matter of fact, from 1950s to 1970s the Nationalist government took the developmental route for rapid economic growth instead of social welfare approach such as providing public housing.

The most obvious example in maneuvering the modern design to serve the Nationalist ideology was Taipei Municipal Government building (1980-1994). The reason it was chosen among the entries in competition was said because its plan being in double cross shape which symbolized the National Birth Day (i.e. October 10, called in Chinese ‘Double Tenth Day’ and the sign of ‘double ten’ (++) was imbued with the implication of the state---the Republic of China).

The clash between the architectural metaphors as moons for nostalgia and for Westernization forged a composite of identity for the nationality construction---to be a Chinese state and to be modern. In fact, the identification as such was itself seemingly a fabrication of ideology and it went on serving the pro-development policy, and thus left a considerable gap in housing supply afterward for private sectors’ speculation.

IV. Places for Imagineering
Appadurai contends that the area studies remind us of the globalization being itself a deeply historical, uneven and even localizing process. It not necessarily implies homogenization or Americanization. Different societies would appropriate the materials of modernity differently . If we look back in Taiwan at the modernity monopolized by the colonialism or imperialism with its claim of enlightenment and at the modernization promoted by the nation-state striving for fitting into the worldwide division of labor, we see the collective identity to be forged somewhat in a totalitarian way. While over the latest development, the heterogeneous version of modernity structured by different ways of imagination unfolding from local endeavors demonstrates a kind of diverse globalization.

In fact, after the period of 1970s-80s when the self-conscious movements caring for the lived land drew popular attention, the East Asian region picks up its own momentum in re-imagineering the self. Olympic game hosted in Seoul (1988) and Pu-dung development in Shanghai (1989-) become the hallmarks for national imagineering, In Taiwan, the lifting of martial law in 1987 also triggers off active imagination concerning the civic amenity. Different from the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Circle claimed by Japan as a colonial ambition in the 1935, the new wave of imagination in East Asia since the 1990s has revealed in a multiple mode. The democratic development in the region fosters constellations of public spaces in local areas helping to check against the impact of globalization.

Starry sky can be best applied to describing the global-local development during this period in Taiwan. Stars in the sky can be defined by astronomical or mythological order and then categorized into specific constellations. However, broadly speaking, for most ordinary viewers, stars in the sky imply multiplicity. Different from the strongly sunny beam-like domination of ideology, or the mirroring moon for the self as the other to the warfare and to the Western modernity, stars are multiple light spots or points always allowing for infinite ways of imagination. For us, stars which represent those architectural works appearing in the period from the 1990s till now manifest a kind of de-ideologized or de-centered intention.

Global Stars’ Projects
Earlier superstars from abroad include I.M Pei, Gottfred Böhm, Kenzo Tange who were invited around 1950s-60s to design for private sectors---e.g. university, church and school. Their shinning works mainly drew attention from the professional sphere. From 1980s on, increasing foreign architects were committed by the government to complete some public works like Dung-shan River Water Park by Team Zoo (1994) and National Museum of Prehistory by Michael Grave (2001), with its Peinan Culture Park by Naido Hiro (1999).

Among many stories, the Guggenheim Museum Project in Taichung was so far the most sensational international event in Taiwan’s international campaign for city promotion. This was also part of Guggenheim Foundation’s global maneuvering within the cultural economy. The city government suspended the project originally for the New Civic Center designed by Swiss team Weber + Hofer AG Architects and took the site to negotiate with the Guggenheim. From 2001 to 2004 Guggenheim Project was once extended to include an Opera House (by J. Nouvel), a New Municipal Center (by F. Gehry), and the Museum (by Z. Hadid). A project of 12.4 billion US dollars was proposed by the ‘Two Kings and One Queen’- a dream for Taichung to link to the world . The project was finally turned down by the city council for its difficulty to be run independently by the city government and the New Civic Center Project was resumed then to its completion.

The World Sport Stadium in Kao-hsiung designed by Toyo Ito (2008), Tourist Center in Sun Moon Lake by Norihiko Dan (2010), Ito’s current working on the construction of Taichung Opera House, Mecanoo Team’s working on Music Complex in Kao-hsiung, Taodo Ando on Library in Asia University in Taichung and Koolhaas’ winning the competition of Taipei Pop Music Center in 2010, are all hailed as brilliant master pieces and manipulated to marketing the city, the institute or the tourism.

Nevertheless, it was always clearly the real estate sectors which profited mostly from those grand projects. City Civic Centre project and the Opera House Project in Taichung seemed to be the case. The developers went to boom along the parkway in the area assigned to the projects. In addition, there exists another debate on if the global architect really pays his or her concern for the ‘locality’ of the site. The target pointed here is the Opera House in Taichung (Fig. 8). Since the project was revised from the submission for the competition of Forum for Music, Dance and Visual Culture in Gent (2004), it can hardly avoid reminding of Appadurai’s alleged suggestion that the local should not just wait to be fed with fodder of international knowledge . What’s at issue is how does the existing space production mechanism cooperate with the global super stars or how to well incorporate their works, when built, into the everyday life of local people？

Building the Local
During the 1990s, a group of young architects showed their intention to practice in township or countryside (e.g. set up office in village) with some of them even keep declining the commission from real estate developers. They showed strong commitment to enhance the civic quality of the local area and advocated the public-ness for the rural community.

With a rough categorization, they can be divided into two groups: one is more or less like the ‘Expressionist’ including Sheng-yuan Hwang, Li-hwang Lu, Wi-li Liao and Kuo-tsang Liu; the other may be called ‘Tectonic-Radical’ with its members such as Wen-jei Chiu, In-chuen Hsei, Yu-cheng Hung, etc. Their free and challenging designs happened to meet the emerging collective imagination of the local people.

These local stars worked on the design of bridges, pavilions, schools and renovation of warehouses. They made these constructions became the architecture as carrier of humane quality and social relation, reactionary to those modernization projects mainly for motor movement and for rationality/efficiency. Some of such place making practice patched up urban gap between fragmented domains in the city. The Heart of Hsin-chu and the Yi-lan City Crescent Project (Fig. 9) were among the most aggressive cases.

The Heart of Hsin-chu Project (Fig. 10) was concerned with the history-laden city gate located in the middle of a roundabout in the busy city center. Wen-jai Chiu created a sunken arena connecting the city gate with stairs and linked laterally by underground to the city moat already dredged. He then provided a new movement for pedestrians walking from surface to underground and formulated a distinctive urban sense of place.

City Crescent Project in Yi-lan has been implemented for the past nearly thirty years. Japanese developed the crescent-shaped area to the south of the old city with public facilities such as brewery, military base, county government, jail, bank, park, primary school and railway station. Over the years, county government and jail were moved out for commercial redevelopment, performing art center was built in the park, and remodeling jobs were done for warehouses by/in railway, brewery, bank, etc . Now the city moat reopening project is undergoing along the popular road on which the old city wall was once located.

The architecture locally built as such can be regarded as the machine of imagination- catalyst. Those works provoke the spatial imagination of local people and deliberate a brand new sense of public place for/with them. All these development has been in accordance with the democratic milieu in the local Taiwan.

V. Matrix-ing the Tradition and the Modernity
Because involved with the growth of the self, or the wake of the self-consciousness, the experience of modernity in Taiwan, as an economic-political sub-system in East Asia, may be regarded essentially as a cultural experience. In this sense, Zigmunt Bauman’s interpretation of culture can be a helpful toolset for recasting a look at the modern architectural development in Taiwan, which embodies the experience of modernity in the civic and everyday life world.

First I would argue that Bauman’s contention of the culture elucidated in threefold can be a framework for our re-interpretative task: culture as concept, culture as structure and culture as praxis . All these can be further extended, with regard to the architectural argument above-mentioned without too obvious tailoring, to the culture as concept of enlightenment and resistance, the culture as structuring and structured capacity for legitimacy and identity, and the culture as praxis embodying the collective imagination. Such a hermeneutic extension somewhat meets Bauman’s another idea---‘culture as matrix’.

Among his debates on culture issue, the idea for him to distinguish ‘system’ and ‘matrix’ seems to be worthy of attention. For Bauman, systemness is essentially to subordinate the freedom of the elements to the pattern maintenance of the totality; while, inspired by Claude Lévi-Strauss, the culture can be portrayed on the other hand as a structure of choices---a matrix of possible, finite in number yet practically uncountable permutations . He argues that society and culture tend to retain their distinctiveness but their identity can only last through change, and thus to master a culture means to master a matrix of possible permutations, a set of fully implemented and always far from completion .

Over the past 350 years or even longer, Taiwan as part of the sea of islands experienced through playing different roles in tribute system, pirate economy, semi-periphery of world system, newly industrialization or globalization, and has eventually grown to be what itself is out of the matrix structuring and structured by the East Asian context. No matter how the systems within which Taiwan played roles frequently alternated, the matrix it belonged to has been the same one in spite of its keeping mutating a lot.

Applying the idea of matrix to analyze the modernization of Taiwan may be worthy of a trial. For example, unless a short period under the lead of Zeng Cheng-kung’s marine power around 1660s, it didn’t seem until 1980s that Taiwan had independently and directly encountered the modernity by itself. The modernity with which Taiwanese was confronted was guided through Japanese occupation during 1895-1945 and Chinese rule before and after then. The colonial sun was in fact the moon reflecting the Zeitgeist of the civilization and enlightenment from the genuine sun of the European modernity. The later authoritarian sunny construction of the Nationalist government was also covered with consoling function and catching up with the advanced economies, and eventually pointed to the moon-metaphors of brighter at homeland and rounder foreign one. That’s the reason why during this period we saw the transplantation of European or Sinic Revival ‘style’ (or the International style) rather than the ‘tectonic’ invention generated from the Han or autochthonous dwelling culture. And the resistance in terms of architecture was seldom seen either. Houses of some compradors and rich traders during the colonial period, or even those designed by the modernists architects after the Second World War, if judged in stricter sense, were mostly adaptive or eclectic rather than resistant. Only Chung-hsing New Village and Da-hung Wang’ s works like Rainbow Mansion might be counted as among the critical modern projects in Taiwan.

The architecture and urbanism developed by the global and local stars after 1990s has been quite multivalent in speculating the modernity in Taiwan. Especially those talented local architects ‘practiced locally’ to redefined public spaces in the countryside with variety of their design strategies. For these architects, the periphery is the frontier. All their works in the form of bridge, pavilion, schools or public institution, help shape the public space with sense of place, or more precisely, of the ‘locality’. In this relatively ideology-free society, the advantage of its opening to the global and local architects indeed harvested kinds of positive exchange among one another. What the locality achieved by superstars and local stars architects’ formulations seems a small step forward to self-consciously structuring the matrix of its own.

Therefore, positing architecture back into the refreshing debate of urbanism and culture means significantly to the current situation in Taiwan. Like the European school of ‘the architecture of the city’, practices such as City Crescent Project in Yi-lan or city reconstruction projects in other old cities with issues addressed to enlivening up the matrix of Taiwan proper may unfold a valid approach toward a genuine ‘overcoming of modernity’. For Taiwan and those of Asian context, the genuine enlightenment should be a sort of reflexive mode, which needs to be guided toward re-imagining the tradition at its meeting with the modern, and identifying the modern out of the ever-evolving matrix of the tradition.

The architecture in Taiwan inherits the heritage of imperialism/revolution, colonialism/nationalism, and dictatorship/democracy over the past century. Our historical point of view concerning the architectural development can be more aggressive and even provocative if tracing back to Koxinga’s victory on the Dutch in 1661 and his taking Taiwan as the base for his marine kingdom in East Asia. The recent development of the starry architecture in Taiwan seems to retrieve the wild thrust and energy of Koxinga’s pirate cruise on the East Asian Sea.

VI. Conclusion
As far as the space-culture as matrix is concerned, we may reach some tentative conclusion as what follows:
1. Most of people in Taiwan (or even in East Asia) only remember that their modernization dated from the second half of the 19th century. They’ve forgot it could be traced back to Zeng Cheng-kung’s marine strength in the 17th century which was somewhat not less superior to the Western powers on the sea. The historical depth for their elaborating modernity should thus go through to that point where the East Asian first met the European and both were then competitive with each other. The modernity was not dropping to them suddenly from zero, nor was it only a given from outside, but it was a historical mutation of the existing matrix of East Asia while colliding against the modernity first introduced to it by the European.
2. The modernization in Taiwan had been of the moon-like mode, refracted from the modernization of China and Japan, which directly reacted to the beam of enlightenment of the Western modernity. In this sense, Taiwan doesn’t seem to ‘overcome the modern’ like Japan which directly and thoroughly learned from European and also underwent widespread self-reflection on modernity after the War. Nor does it likely struggle to resist modernity from within like China which had paid tremendously to get itself modernized.
3. As for the architecture in Taiwan, it doesn’t seem to have a sense of regionalism if the regionalism is defined as those worked out through consideration of specific climate, culture and history of a definite area. The architecture of the recent 20 years in Taiwan can be recognized as various concerns with the ‘locality’ and they performed like myriad of stars rather than named constellations.
4. Ironically such architecture of locality gains probably the potential to develop the culture-matrix of Taiwan proper, which in fact may have been incorporate into the East Asian one with commonly shared history and culture. Therefore a critical regionalism in architecture in Taiwan and Easy Asia may be possibly constructed through those architectural practices undertaken and undertaking locally if they are capable of embodying a self-consciously conceptualized understanding of the locality/history of their own.

To sum up, the East Asia as the sea of ports and islands is vividly emerging as a field of constructive discourse. The unique trajectory of the architectural development in Taiwan seems to be more relevantly elucidated against this field. To think in a regional perspective can probably be an intermediate strategy to grope for the new message out of the matrix complicated always with the historical-cultural tension between tradition/modernity, global/ local and self/other debates.

踅行在空間裡的社會貓

踅行在空間裡的社會貓
在建築空間裡思考，常太快跳接到美學，或只在乎視覺形式。 若是再多繞過社會空間，從個體或整體的生活體驗，切身地觀察「我-你-他」或「我-你-我們」或「我們-你們-他們」等種種關係，如此透過社會性觀察，再回到都市空間，也許才會碰觸更多人性面。 (人們說，貓是涼性的動物，總是以冷眼旁觀的姿態看世界，所以假設有那麼一隻具有涼涼的一雙社會眼的貓，不管瞭不了解地看著我們社會變化所逐漸改變的空間關係。)

Zygmunt Bauman在「液態之愛」(城邦出版)書裡擔心當代男女之間的「純粹關係」，他所謂的「純粹關係」的特色，是它能被任一方在任何特定時間任意終止，也就是沒有長遠承諾的關係，不再「山盟海誓」，所有關係若都屬「純粹」，就很難使信任生根開花。 人際間---在最根本與基礎的兩性之間---沒有穩固的「信任」關係，社會扭帶關係將會是多麼脆弱。(p. 48, 172)

上學期邀請高承恕老師來上一次課，他指出一項事實，在大陸一胎化政策下，中國即將邁向一個沒有親戚的社會。 家只是「父母-子女」的不斷垂直重複，家裡再也難得見到一群年輕的親人團聚，每個家庭養小孩的配備如娃娃車、玩具、還有童裝等都只用一回，這樣發展成三代同堂也不過七個人，還坐不滿一桌呢。 告別式更是淒涼，兒-媳或女-婿各站一邊，再加一個孫輩而已，儀式上最被尊崇的舅舅也必然缺席。

台灣人是否該更珍惜自己的親戚呢？ 因為很快地---可能不必等到再一代---一個沒有親戚的社會就成形了。 人際紐帶脆弱化，對血緣關係基礎的率性或任性，個人主義單向化意識的普及化。 一個普遍沒有親戚、1/3人口沒有後代的社會(城市)會是怎樣的狀況呢？ 公共性將嚴重失衡，親屬的單薄化也導向社會關係紐帶的單薄化？

甚麼是公共呢？ 我曾問學生，百貨公司是公共空間嗎？ 你在那裏可以自在地逛選、試穿、買或不買，隨心所欲。 有些學生答是，但真是嗎？ 假如你穿得很破爛，警衛會讓你進到百貨公司嗎？ 百貨公司其實不像廟口，它讓人在裡面自由自在是有條件的，基本條件是你看起來應有購買力，否則它不會歡迎你的。

我們的社會跟先進社會一樣地趨向對「多樣性增加」的畏懼感，也許稱作是「混雜恐慌症(mixophobia)」吧。 「街」正在城市中消失，「街」都正變成「路」，以前在街上長大的孩子，現在只敢養在樓上長大的孩子。

台中市愈來愈純，愈來愈同質化，不是嗎？ 譬如說，台中的小孩大多在爸媽的車上看世界而長大，然後在電視前面、在電腦螢幕前學習到他們想要的知識。 台北小孩至少在捷運車廂裡可看見很多種臉孔所組合出來的世界---本國的、外國的、老的、小的、男的、女的…或很帥、很美、很醜、很倔、很柔、很俗…等等很多種人。 很多人在車廂裡說話，但不太喧嚷，像是在倫敦巴黎紐約等地鐵車廂裡常很安靜，那是一種都會人世故的安靜，車廂裡充滿壓抑與冷漠。 但是台北捷運車廂像是都市裡的客廳，還沒聊完的話題仍在這裡繼續，或在這裡找到新的話題開始聊起，經常不乏人與人之間的關心---譬如讓座給老人或實際不太老的人。 在台北，捷運車廂裡的人形形色色，每個人彼此共享移動體驗，但每人的目的地不同，不像百貨公司裡的人群，目的就是購物休閒。

有陣子我常往台北跑，坐高鐵到台北再轉乘捷運，居然有種錯覺，覺得台中的都心其實在台北，因為我在台中從來沒機會看到那麼多不同的臉孔，那帶出都市的感覺，在台中雖然大樓愈來愈多，日常生活中卻少有熙熙攘攘的場合經驗。 說真的，在一個高度流動的時代，一個城市的最重要公共空間可能就在大眾運輸上。

台中市可能已經起步太晚。 二十年前我帶著一家人回國時經芝加哥停留數天，住在芝加哥大學招待所，每天坐巴士往返市中心時，全車乘客中就只我們一家人膚色最淺，因此吸引所有其它乘客的眼光，記得在橡樹園看完萊特作品，請教一位女大學生怎麼坐車回市中心，她回說不知道，她告訴我們她這輩子沒坐過巴士或捷運，她是白種人，對她而言，大眾運輸是給有色人種用的，她自己開汽車或坐家人開的汽車。 當時，這種特殊又真實無比的社會空間給我很大的衝擊。 這二十多年來，台中市民被迫(沒有選擇地)在市區開車活動，真希望台中市未來不會變成芝加哥。

台中市中心幾乎已死，但再來可能不再如此稱呼了，因合併後台中都的舊市中心可多了，豐原、東勢、大甲、霧峰都有舊市區，台中舊都心到底指的是哪裡呢？ 大甲最近不是比任何一個地方都還熱鬧滾滾？ 今天該怎麼來定義一個城市的核心呢？

我總覺得有種像貓一樣的動物，涼涼地瞪眼看著如此變化中的人的世界，悄悄地不發一聲，但似乎會心地知曉這一切…。

愛的房子

愛的房子

坐高鐵常會遇上意料不到的人。 那天在台北上車，跳上自由座車廂，找到位子坐下，一轉頭看見一張熟悉的笑臉---
「喲，阿久---是你啊」
「騾子，好久不見嘞，幹嘛，開會歐。」

阿久是家鄉M鎮上的老朋友，小學同學，國中也同學，高中雖分開念，但每次回家鄉都會找他，後來我們念上不同大學的同樣的系，他比我早出國念學位，之後他一直在南部一所國立大學誤人子弟，跟我又是同行，偶而在台北開會時碰面。 本來每年過年回老家總會見個面聊聊，這幾年各自奔波，連返鄉過年都少見面了。

「最近都在忙甚麼？」
「也沒有---」說沒有，但阿久的笑容明顯收了起來。
「我爸最近不好，---上周檢查出癌腫瘤，過幾天要住院治療。 其實他一年多前發現膽管長癌，就動過一次大刀。」
「阿伯噢---年紀很大囉」
「八十三歲了，他好像說過跟你爸一起讀公學校的。」

阿久老爸在我記憶裡壯壯的，蠻嚴肅的，跟我爸差不多，好像受日本教育出來的都是這樣。 他媽媽一向對我很好，我最喜歡他媽媽做的紅豆年糕，我們家就不會做，這是我以前每年過年都會去他家報到的原因之一。

「我媽今年也八十一了，兩年前腰椎兩節壓迫性骨折，穿鐵甲穿了半年。」
「我媽身體還好，不過一年多前也開白內障手術，兩眼輪流開。 她喜歡唱歌嘛，唱卡拉OK看得見字幕對她很重要。」
「多久回去看他們？」我問。
「一兩個禮拜吧，逮到時間就回去。 在天井跟媽媽一起摘菜成為我最好的休閒方式，跟媽媽在廚房忙也很棒。 你知道嗎？ 回老家陪爸媽，像是走入另一種時間裡，很單純很緩慢，天天一樣。 手機響起時，又把你抓回到我們自己的時間裡。 但譬如摘菜時，我會感覺到第三種時間，那種被減掉的時間，那種陪老人家陪一次算一次，或者陪一次就少一次的那種時間感。 感覺像沙漏不斷流漏掉的時間…我有些焦慮，但每次又從媽媽臉上平和的線條中找回到我要的平靜。」

阿久說的他家天井也是我熟悉的，我們那一代小孩，鄰居每一家都進去玩過，每一家長得甚麼樣子都一清二楚。 他家天井不大，五、六坪而已，因為面東，早上充滿陽光，過了中午就涼快起來，我記得午睡過後到他家，他媽媽總是一盆盆地把水灑在天井地上，使地板盡快涼起來。

阿久他家客廳也是我熟到不行的地方，他家沒直接臨接馬路，要經過一條甬道進去。 我們以前玩捉迷藏遊戲，經常玩進甬道裡，有時還躲到他爸的代書桌下面藏起來，不過那可要在他爸不在家的時候。 那客廳也不大，入口處就是他爸工作地方，另一邊靠牆放幾張藤沙發，往天井那一邊是餐桌，在他爸工作位置後，有一木造樓梯往樓上。 那樓梯扶手下是小圓立柱，上下兩端較小、中間肚子部分較大的那種，樓梯前兩階是水泥砌的，在木造階級開始處立了一支木製方柱，接上往斜上去的木扶手。 方柱頂上是一顆十四面體的柱頭，小時候每次到他家我就喜歡那個多面體柱頭。 那塊木柱頭的光澤是那客廳裡顯得最神秘的焦點，像是他家的靈魂之眼。 我小時候常看著阿久的老祖父費力地一手掌抓著那柱頭上樓梯，也看過他阿婆同樣地抓著那柱頭上樓…

「是啊，我現在也同樣地看著我老爸抓著那柱頭上樓，他早晚都上樓點香。 我老媽也一樣地抓著它上樓，每天早上她在樓上神明前念經。 我兒子回來也喜歡抓著它上樓梯。」
「你不覺得這柱頭很有靈氣？」
「哈，好幾代的手澤…是啊…」

「欸，騾子，今天正好碰到你，我跟你說。 前些時我回去，心裡頭蠻煩躁的，因醫師剛跟我說我爸上次照的斷層掃描有些可疑地方。 那晚我跟爸媽一起吃過飯，洗好碗筷時走出廚房，我突然感到一股暖意，一下掃掉我的煩躁。 因為我突然意識到，我爸媽就這樣在這屋子裡住了六十年欸，這個家最多時住了十四口人，那時我叔叔全家也回來擠一起，還有其它時候也住過一些親戚。 但只我爸媽在這房裡生我們兄弟姊妹四人，只有我們是在這房子---就在客廳旁邊那間房裡出生的。 然後我們長大，我祖父在這家裡過世，然後我祖母也這樣過世，然後我爸媽變老，現只他倆住一起。 我想到，這個家的每個角落，每塊地坪，每個高差，我爸媽都走過摸過六十年了，天啊，我突然覺得這老房子多麼尊貴，它是一對夫妻以一生的所有時光『住』出來的。」

「是啊，我一直覺得你家本來就很有靈氣。 你記不記得我很喜歡待在你房間，高中後你不是有一間自己房間嗎？ 羨慕死我了，我一直要跟弟弟擠一間。」
「對，那時我房間看出去是一片水田，遠處是一片矮山，後面一排山脈裡，有一座雙鋒相連的山，我阿婆說那是筆架山，表示我們家會出讀書人。 但我最喜歡的是更後頭的那座大山。」
「我也還記得…」
「我查過地圖，確認過這山叫加里山，標高兩千多公尺，是那個方向最高大的山。 我中學時候常愛看這大山，它的山頂好平坦寬闊，然後以好緩好遠的伸展方式下降下來，我那時就想著以後我要像這座大山一樣…」
「甚麼一樣？ 你說要跟山一樣，甚麼意思？」
「欸，你不會懂的，我也說不清楚，我覺得那座山好偉大，它幾乎影響我一輩子…」
「真的？」
「但現在我房間後面沒有田了，都蓋滿了販仔屋。 在那後面還建了一棟高樓，根本看不到遠山了。」

「真的好久沒去你家了。」
「回來時有空就來坐吧。」
「哦，我知道了，你家就是那個叫Steven Holl來，打死他都設計不來的…」
「那晚我了解到假如雲上面有神明或天使的話，祂一定會特別關照我爸媽的，他們以六十年歲月把一個房子住成一個家…。 但現在…假如萬一…」

「歐，台中到了，我先下囉！」
阿久還未回過神來，他的眼神還留在車窗外好遠的地方…

Reconnecting Architecture: Documenting Practices of Hope

以下是孟買KRVIA建築學院預定在今年底推出的建築展覽活動構想, 現正與東海建築系商討合作, 他們也希望與亞洲其他國家進行合作। 經由東海的中介, 將與曼谷的朱拉隆功大學建築系一起建立跨國三校的共同設計教學計畫, 預計將配合此項年底活動同時進行। 請有興趣的老師,建築師朋友與同學們密切注意।

Proposition initiated by KRVIA, Mumbai, India, April 2011 >Reconnecting Architecture: Documenting Practices of Hope


"Reconnecting Architecture" is an exhibition of a compilation of architectural/urban practices from India as well as Asia। This exhibition curated by the Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Mumbai is being framed during a decisive time in India as well as Asia as this region marches towards becoming an economic powerhouse driven by globalization। However, faced with rising social tensions, rising food prices, depleting water resources, the question of our dependence on different types of energy generation sources (coal based or nuclear), threatened environmental systems, natural calamities and financial meltdowns, there seems to be a doubt on the project of rapid globalization. While the benefits of globalization are there for everyone to see and experience through the benefits of increased connectivity (in close proximity as well as remote) and seemingly easy access to knowledge across the globe, it is time for a critical re -thinking.


Central to this endeavour is the rethinking on the nature of urbanization that we are experiencing in our cities along with the nature of architectural and urban practices that they seem to generate। While I write being familiar to the context of India in specific, there are similarities in the urban transformation that the Asian region is experiencing. It is driven by high economic growth, reorganization of global capital flow from developed markets to these emerging markets, ever increasing informalization of manufacturing and services within these cities and the growth of huge private townships - Special Economic Zones - dedicated to manufacturing outside it. Similar developments can be seen across the region.


Specifically In the case of India the country had embarked on the project of globalization in 1991 when a cash strapped government invited private capital, both national and international, to be invested into the development of this region. Prior to it, the government played an important role in funding development and was the prime sponsor of architecture and other cultural practices within the country.


Through 1947 till the 1980’s Indian architectural practice was led to its zenith by the like of Achyut Kanvinde, Le Corbusier, Louis Khan, Charles Correa, B. V. Doshi, Laurie Baker, Joseph Allen Stein, Raj Rewal, Uttam Jain, to name a few. The contributions of these architects have been documented in the book “After the Masters” by Vikram Bhatt and Peter Scriver. Among these architects it was Charles Correa who won the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture from the Japan Art Association in1994 taking Indian architecture to the international platform. Through these architects and the government- by being the primary patron, a series of important educational campuses, libraries, governmental headquarters, museums and art galleries, industrial complexes and townships, exhibition pavilions, etc. were built. This was a period of a great deal of experimentation and the development of a vocabulary for Modern Indian Architecture. Through experiments in material technology, scale and built volume, relationship of built and un-built spaces, etc. architects gave the country a strong identity under an independent democratic government through its 40 years of existence. These architects subscribed to strict ethical and professional codes- seeing themselves a visionaries giving shape to a new nation.


It was through the late 1980’s and the 1990’s that the government took a backstage in sponsoring architecture and private corporations and other entities took over as the primary clientele for architecture. The nature of architectural programs transformed with this shift. Architectural program from the 1990’s till today are characterised by an unending list of mega gated townships, exclusive malls and shopping complexes; sprawling commercial and office districts/ zones/ campuses; as well as buildings owned by single corporate entities, luxurious private healthcare institutions which emulate five star hotels; Disneyland like water parks and theme parks; blatant and insensitive redevelopment of historic areas and informal settlements, etc. Driven by the mathematics of profit and the unrelenting greed to multiply it further, these transformations are creating an urban form never before experienced in the history of our cities. This also seems to be true for cities in the Asian context. It has led to creating a make-believe world - an architecture of perpetual celebration, where few can participate- a few who can speculate and participate in the new financial citizenship that globalization has brought along. To drive home the exclusionary and speculative nature of these developments in the region the example of the Dubai real estate market during the height of the financial meltdown can be enumerated. Millions of square feet of spectacular and exclusive townships ex- The Palm, built by reclaiming the sea lay empty, desolate and dead for lack of buyers.


Due to these developments notions of the public realm; affordable housing; and environmental resources like water, food and energy; have undergone significant transformations along with the form of urbanization. The public realm is to be found more internalized in the confines of the mall; affordable housing as defined by the market would be completely unaffordable to the maximum amount of people; a clean environment is now considered a premium within exclusive and beautiful housing environments; clean water can only be available in PET bottles, food is increasingly being controlled by few large shopping chains, energy is privatised and is now ever more scare and costly.


It is in this that the role of architect has to be questioned. The architect now is seen as a mere service provider who is adept in maximizing financial returns for her/his corporate clients. Within these limited boundaries she/he has to manipulate forms to create “the spectacle”. It is an architecture of the skin as other parameters seem to be undefined. There is a great deal of interest among architects- both international as well as local to participate in shaping the tremendous changes that the Asian region is experiencing. While there are some practices which unquestioningly engage with the forces of global capital there are others who are looking to evolve critical ways of evolving alternative solutions. The latter group though small is often lost in the mainstream discourse of architecture and urban planning. Yet, often they seem to be most able to resolve the conflicts that emerge when the forces of globalisation hit the ground reality of communities and local environmental systems. This group is composed of academia, few collaborative practices, certain governmental and non-governmental organizations and conscious private practices. It is these types of practices, which though not always initiated by architects/planners, seem to provide alternatives to the issues that confront us.


These are the practices that the KRVIA is undertaking to document. These are practices which reconnect architecture to its need to address basic human values. Inspired by the exhibition “An Architecture of Consequence” organized by the Netherland Institute of Architecture the effort is to archive practices in India and certain countries in Asia where the KRVIA have been able to initiate collaborations namely in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Thailand. We have suggested certain themes, that we need to address and which are of prime concern due to the rapid growth and development that these contexts are experiencing. The themes are:


Reclaiming the Public Realm – It is to document projects and practices which aim to reclaim and redefine public spaces in the contemporary context. Numerous of these projects have been initiated by resident groups, community based organizations as well as individual practices.


Protecting Environmental Assets – These are projects which have been initiated either to rejuvenate or protect the natural environment, sometimes to establish a positive relationship with its immediate built environment or sometimes to increase biodiversity or to restore the ecological health of a place.


Conserving resources (Energy, Food, Water, Buildings) – These are projects that have made an attempt to conserve these resources like water, energy, old buildings as an integrated part of the built environment. There could also be projects to introduce the notion of farming and agriculture within the urban milieu.


Providing Affordable Living Environment – These would constitute projects which would help in improving living environments inhabited by the urban poor. They could also be green field projects which have been able to deliver affordable living environments to the urban poor at a reasonable price. Most of such projects would be set off by community based organizations or are government initiatives.


The archiving would be in the form of an exhibition/publication. This would be a part of the Kamala Raheja Lecture Series to be held in the month of December, 2011. Additionally it maybe a website which would assist in archiving such practices through the Asian context.

KRVIA's Website: http://www.krvia.ac.in

也許有人想回味一下英國館

也許有人想回味一下英國館

終於也走到英國館了，已經近黃昏了，排隊應該不致於還那麼踴躍吧，但事實證明，好的設計就是吸引人，隊伍摺來摺去應該有一公里長吧，反正也走不動了，我就只好決心跟廣大的人民站在一起排隊了。 五點開始排，七點不到就進到展場了，真是太幸運了。

這毛茸茸的英國館真是太可愛了，站在外頭從不同距離看，都吊足每個人胃口，都好奇這是甚麼玩意兒。 無論怎麼看，都不像是房子模樣，一點也沒有「容器」的樣子，只像是一個「東西」。 滿佈著一根根鬚鬚刺刺的怒張線條，卻又是透明的、好好摸的討人喜歡，在艷陽高照的展區裡，它的輪廓永遠顯得模糊膨鬆，跟其它展館各顯神通的各種外「殼」比較起來，它像是展區裡最虛幻的一種觸覺形體。

來到入口處，真讓人捨不得立刻進去，在這毛茸茸東西切開口，可以仔細端詳所謂的毛叢構造，那些鬚鬚原來是一根根有質量有直徑的壓克力棒，末端近一米長度是透明的，端點上透著Led光亮(這時黃昏已盡)，每根棒棒內裡根部是黑色的，往旁邊往上看，像是來到一個超越現代的原始叢毬裡，或者像是人變小了走入一個放大的絨毛狀果實裡。 走進內部，更是意料不到的有觸感的精彩視覺經驗，所有的毛鬚棒子都戳到內部來，在裡面密密實實地以一根根壓克力棒佈滿，而且四周與上下六個面都往中央隆起，形成相當動態的起伏曲面。 每根棒的末端三十公分逐漸放大，最末端灌進各種不同植物的種子，有的一大顆，有的是好幾顆小的，在每一支透明壓克力柄狀末端裡，讓遊客可以接近瀏覽。 導覽員告訴我，這個館用了九百多種的種子，共用掉26萬顆種子(有好多是重複的)，以及60686支壓克力棒，每支長7।5m，毛紮紮地又排列整齊，在走動中可以不同角度體驗到波形起伏的構成景觀。

在裡面仔細研究這些種子棒棒叢，我逐漸看懂為何內部牆體需要成為弧形的理由。 弧狀牆形一方面是順著棒棒戳入的勢道往中央鼓起，最重要的是這樣就可以用同樣長度的壓克力棒來組出整個叢狀體，與90°垂直壁體正交的中央點上，同樣長度的棒棒就形成這壁「面」上最凸出的點(若內壁為平直面，要達到棒棒往外發散戳出，則每根棒棒必須不一樣長，而在中央點上的棒棒必須最短)。 所以，每一根同樣長度的棒棒，在不同厚度的牆身裡以不同角度往外發散射出，形成完美的多變量弧體構成。

整個小小館裡沒有文字、也沒一句話，但26萬多顆種籽卻喧嘩地滿滿地說了一屋子的話，真是不著文字而盡得風流。 館體外觀無論從哪個角度看，中央都是深暗，愈往外緣愈透光，愈顯毛茸茸的； 可愛之外，而且在任何角度，都隱隱可看出英國國旗的影子，這點就真是利害了。 也就是說，這個館的設計，從裡到外，一以貫之，從材料、結構、空間、意義、符號、象徵，都在設計的構想與表達中被呈現出來，它不是一個「裝飾棚子」，也不能說它是一個「鴨子」，它超出了Robert Venturi的對立命題。

我覺得它打破了當代建築的「殼」體思維習慣，讓我想起Marcos Cruz與Marjan Colletti(當時還是Barttlet School, UCL的博士生)兩年多前在東海建築系的演講，他強調他的設計利用新的媒體工具，企圖探討建築容器的「肌理」(Flesh)構成勝於「皮層」(skin)的包覆，這個英國館一樣地拋棄了輕薄外皮、而採一種有厚度的叢狀外層來圍起建築。 展區裡的德國館、法國館、加拿大館、新加坡館、瑞典館等還以假皮層來包起展示空間的內殼，有些展館甚至直接在方盒子上貼一層「表皮」，如越南館(編竹子)、巴西館(木板亂釘)、秘魯館(排竹子)等。 與英國館較接近的西班牙館，也可看作是用厚度來表現外層構造的例子。 張永和在浦西展區設計的上海工業建設館外層，也是利用細長管密密地橫直交錯形成空間架構，也同樣是肌理式外層包覆作法。

在這英國館，我們可以看出建築潮流已經走出「後現代」或「晚期現代」僵持在表皮的真實性或表現性(甚至裝飾性)的爭論，也凌越了高科技建築(N. Foster, R. Piano, Calatrava等)與炫酷建築(F. Gehry, Z. Hadid)的奇觀競賽，它進入一個新的以肌理思維來表現建築表層(或牆體)的時代，這達成一種軟的意象、體現複雜繁多的秩序、也傳達近人性的(或很人間)意義，建築成為感動人的公共藝術，從構築技術到符號溝通，都被整合成一個獨特而出乎意料的空間經驗。 我走出小館，外面是展開「包裝紙」似的人工草皮，在館體下方是水池，將毛茸茸的立方體輕盈地浮在水面上，所以它不是掉在這「包裝紙」上，而是無重量似的飄在紙上(或漂在水上)。

我躺在草皮上，往上看著這巨大的毛毛立方，每根壓克力棒從裡往外戳出來，末端帶點重量而往下垂，看起來像冷冷焰火爆開又往下流淌的感覺，一根根在風中搖曳，棒端光點也跟著擺動，點點末端綴出一層透明紗膜飄動似的表面，看著看著人跟著幾乎暈眩起來。 天上的星星都顯得蒼白起來，我滿意極了，這真是今年最浪漫神奇的建築作品了。 建築師Thomas Heatherwick這匹新黑馬，在這場盛會裡出足風頭，未來建築史上也該記上一筆吧。

看完英國館，感到非常滿足，這是我的世博第一天，有一種賺到了的感覺。

兩個長建築

兩個長建築
上回到元智大學除了看餘弦設計的那棟電機通訊大樓外，也重新領略到大元設計的行政大樓在正對它的軸線上所呈現的動態平衡，但那天比較意外的收穫是看了張樞團隊設計的學生宿舍，以及回程中經過新竹教育大學看到他在多年前完成的推廣教育大樓。 後者一直是我很久以來想去看的作品，那天終於如願以償，心裡真是高興得很。

張樞其實蠻擅長做長形建築的，都發揮得很好，主要在形態上的articulation很下功夫。 這兩個作品都坐落在校園邊陲角落，幾乎是「死地」，但都因設計者在都市設計尺度上對虛實(figure-ground)空間的熟練掌握，將校園邊角的剩餘土地巧妙地運用，「虛空間」獲得清楚界定而冒出生氣，成為校園裡生動的「端點」。

以這兩個作品來看，它們在「內/外」、「上/下」與「前/後」的區別與經營，都各個定位清楚，並賦予恰當的空間形式表達，在入口/動線、包被/展開和動/靜態之間，可說是收放有致，都顯得相當動人。

元智大學的學生宿舍大概是張樞作品中，難得地流露出很夠溫馨氣息的一例，也許當時已近黃昏，房間裡的燈火亮起，加上一、二樓長條水平帶界定出的餐廳(像是美食街)照明，以及端點的咖啡座紅框敞廳，形成一種集體居住與街道活動結合的溫暖氣氛。 那兩條大水平帶，拉出街道尺度以及流動的意象，從很霸氣的入口大門(很有表現力的輕鋼構)以及梯塔與大階梯引入到內部廣場，從活躍到流暢、到寧靜，空間布局頗具匠心，而這種住宿單元與餐廳的結合模式的確是在program上思考的一大突破。

這校園宿舍較可惜的部分是以中央走廊來配置，這應是要滿足學校要求的高密度住宿數量的緣故，原也無可厚非。 建築師將立面上兩戶單元雨披連續處理，顯得大方明快，整體上一掃學校宿舍的廉價瑣碎，而有都市住宅大樓端莊氣息。 加上從最高處跌宕而下的大屋頂，翻折成背面牆的處理，與入口大門的動態轉折面的設計，有相互對照的趣味。

離開元智大學，很興奮地兜到新竹教育大學側邊，一眼瞥見想念已久的推廣教育樓。 從不顯眼的彎道上側門進入，迎面是六樓高走廊帶圍出的狹長庭院，引向院子底端的大階梯，爬上到三樓高的弧面體所圍起的天井空間，這整個動線過程的空間體驗很具有戲劇性，尤其是大階梯引導到圓弧形內部封閉天井的這一段，像是神來之筆點出了場所的靈魂。 而且這弧形不完全是圓形，平面上顯示是渦線，所以在現場更可感受到彎曲的繃緊張力。 從這渦弧面收頭端走出到底，一個RC圓梯引著動線，帶到運動場的開放空間邊上，可看到延伸向這邊的立面，又是另一番表情。







































那個二樓可愛的圓弧小天井真讓搞設計的人流連不忍離去，它的形式力道真迷人，因為圍繞的走廊的開口很窄很高，所以封閉面很大，形成的虛空間的形狀很夠完整，但走廊上來往的人與天井裡面的互動看來是不被鼓勵的。 也因此我懷疑這個可愛空間對師生而言，或許只是個安靜的被供奉在那兒的殿堂，尷尬地卻掛在動線交會處。

我的心裡是喜歡這推廣教育樓的，但我對元智大學宿舍感覺很舒服，前者是現代主義加上figure/ground操作的示範(modernist + contexualism)，空間(特別是虛空間)是重點，新意中矜持著古典功底子。 後者設計則較放開來，不再孤芳自賞，像是笑吟吟地把人迎進來，而且歡迎人的身段也很好看。



另外，新竹教育大學校園中，也很高興欣賞到音樂系館增建，與另一端街角的體育館(也成為像是社區健康運動中心這類設施)，也都讓人印象深刻，都帶點後現代Mannerism味道，不知是哪一位先進的作品？
(新竹教育大學推廣教育樓照片由羅元均提供)
建議參考:
張樞, <圖說建築>, 台北: 建築情報, 二零零零, 頁一三二-一三三।
<台灣建築>, 二零一一/十二月, 頁六一-六七।
台中市健行路新民高中行政教學大樓的大階梯上到內部圓形大挑空的設計, 應也曾參考新竹教育大學這推廣教育樓的構想吧.