Architecture of Taiwan

Even after living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan for over a year I still get lost if I walk around on my own. Most times in a strange town or place it is easy to get to grips with the layout and to not get lost after the first week or so. In Kaohsiung all is different and although I recognize the major buildings and streets, as soon as I leave them I am totally and utterly adrift.

To look at the average Kaohsiung Street during the day one will see a haphazard selection of buildings ranging from the very new to the falling down. Tall glass structures of the office of today sit happily next to the two floor ramshackle family house. A pink colored apartment block lies comfortably between a gloomy and unfinished tower block and a six-story town house of a person of society. Many common features are shared between all of these buildings and these features bring together these odd structures into one. All buildings are festooned with neon signs, advertisements, flashing lights, barred windows and washing hanging out to dry.

No matter the age of a building, bars stretched across the minimal sized windows are a necessity on the first three floors and often all the way up, regardless of the height. Upon question I was told that the bars are to stop children falling out but this seems far fetched when considering the fact that the windows are small and usually high up and that the Taiwanese do have a great need for feelings of security. Bars across the windows give them security in their own home, as well as the massive steel shutters that are pulled down every night and the security guards that are employed in all apartment complexes. Bars are either for security or to hang the washing out to dry on!

Neon signs of immense proportions are everywhere from rooftops to shop fronts. A two floor house can extend another two floors upwards as the neon sign is fitted on the roof, flashing lights and moving arrows festoon every doorway and corner to attract the dazzled passerby to them and the goods that they offer.

At night and in the dark these neon signs and endless bright lights hide all the buildings from sight. Regardless of the height, the color, the newness or the state of the buildings in a street the occasional walker can not tell the street that they are walking along. All that can be seen is the road in front of them and a dazzling array of bright and eye catching signs flashing all sorts of messages across.

In the modern day and in line with the Taiwanese culture of ultra-cleanliness houses are designed with this in mind. Comfort and homeliness is out and remembering that the average family does not own an air-conditioning unit so are carpets and floor coverings, padded chairs and sofas and anything else that may mould in the humid conditions found in Taiwan. Understandably so, sofas and carpets are suitable breeding grounds for ants, cockroaches and insects of an undesirable nature. Creatures that like furry and warm places in humid conditions to lay their eggs tend to go for these comfortable furnishings - so they are out.

Building New Houses in Progress
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

A house is designed with ease of washing and insulation in mind. Insulation from the outside world by totally sealing the houses interior (rather than the exterior); by fully tiling the ground floor from bottom to top, including the walls and ceiling itself. The upper floors, probably from cost are only tiled on the floors, although all kitchens and bathrooms are tiled all over. With this tiling comes the ease of cleaning and with the absence of carpets washing is done easily and quickly using a mop. One could use one of those high powered Jet Washers for cleaning, seeing as how there are no carpets and sofas but I suppose books would get very wet. Maybe a water proof cabinet would solve that one .Hmmmm.

This matter of tiling is replicated on the exterior on the more expensive of buildings, inside being white tiled and the outside can be light brown, white or even pink. Tiles on the inside are well grouted to reduce access for any rodents creatures or water ingress and in fact if one was to seal the door of the average kitchen it could be turned into a most perfect swimming pool should the beams take the weight!

Building tall to save space
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

Space is of the essence in Taiwan and none more so in places where people want to build houses. Gardens are out! Gardens are a waste of space and so anybody lucky enough to have a garden is either extremely rich or the architects made a mistake. Garages are very important and if no space is available outside invariably the ground floor of a house will be turned into the car park or motorbike shed. And if the family does not have a car they will turn it into a garage regardless and then charge money for others to park their cars there.

The serious lack of space means that buildings are tall and thin. None of this: two floors and an attic like back home, Taiwanese houses are generally very tall, thin and long! A typical family house maybe five or six floors high and with a maximum of two rooms on each floor, one large and one small. Good for exercise but hard for the grandmother. The ground floor invariably being the garage also holds the well-tiled kitchen at the rear. Going upstairs the family room will be found, possible a large area covering the whole floor or a guestroom provided in the smaller space. Upstairs on the next two floors will be the bedrooms and then at the top will be the temple. No basements exist as these are prime targets for rodent breeding grounds and are thus not included or if there is a basement it is invariably a garage or car park.

Attics are not generally included, as there are no sloping roofs to fit one under. I find this lack of basements and attics hard to cope with. We in the western world are invariably over-supplied with suitable storage spaces. One can find Attics, basements and cupboards under the stairs, garages, garden huts and walk-in cupboards of all shapes and sizes to be found at every level. But not one of these spaces can be found in the average house in Taiwan. Even now in my current residence I have loads of cardboard boxes; ones that I want to keep for the next time that I move house, but there is nowhere to store them. Nowhere to put them out of the way and for them to gather dust over time, nowhere for them to be placed out of the way from prying eyes and curious guests except for the spare bedroom. So either one obtains a house with an extra bedroom for storage purposes, lives on top of their junk or throws it all away.

Jammed like sardines together
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

Tall and thin houses built so close to the next that the only windows to look out of are typically only those at the front. Should one open a side window of the house one could reach out and touch the next building, so close are they. And at the rear of the house will be the back of the next house, so with only the front windows to let in light (these typically used for washing or covered in bars) not much works its way inside. Typically, houses are built with the heat of the day in mind and a lack of windows and a white exterior does produce a cooler environment. Often houses are built without windows on the east and west facing sides; thus allowing for a cooler house and with no possibility of studying your neighbors habits or accidentally seeing them do what they do not want others to see.

Sloping roofs can not be found anywhere. Typical Western-style architecture displays a fine variety of sloping roofs all well skillfully tiled from top to bottom, yet in Taiwan all roofs are flat. Flat as a pancake with concrete and drains being used to insulate the roof and to protect the inside from the outside. The roofs may be used to provide a platform for an illegal floor addition - added by the owner for extra space. Illegal they are but tolerated at the same time, probably due to the fact that the controlling officials all have their own extra floor or two added on to their own houses. More often than not a five-story building will suddenly sprout an extra floor or two, made out of tin sheeting and canvas for the poor and proper stone and tiles for the rich. My favorite addition is at the top of a large and imposing tower block, next door to the World Trade Center. Both buildings are impressive and built of a light brown stone. If one looks up at this building a slight something odd springs out at you. At the top of his smart and graceful apartment block is a pink painted, tin-sheet, monstrosity sticking up above everything else around it. Just an extra floor for the family but why they never painted it brown I do not know and why nobody says anything about it is even more peculiar!

The flat roofs are mostly bare and unused or completely covered in large neon signs that can be seen for miles around. It is sadly rare to see a garden or space for relaxation at the top as these empty spaces are a prime area for relaxation and escape from the hustle and bustle of city life below. If one looks down on the cities from above all that can be seen are massive slabs of gray colored concrete either empty or covered in lights and not many green areas, private or otherwise. If I had a house with a roof like that I would make a garden out of it, potted plants everywhere and of course with the neon signs removed. Where a garden is found they are well looked after and very green in nature so it is possible and can work, but they are far and few between!

Going back outside life is rushed. The streets are flowing with a multitude of mopeds of all ages, shapes and sizes. Cars struggle to get passed the packs of two wheelers and pedestrians fight alongside all to get to their destination. It is hard to describe the situation on the roads but as such there is no pavement or walkway for walkers and so they are forced to join the cars and mopeds on their territory. There are pavements but whether these are provided for private use or for the public is non-apparent and anyway, private use has won for all times. The ground floor of every house is set back by about two or three meters with the first floor over hanging this space. An ideal design to utilize space and to provide shelter over a walkway. Well, shelter over what may have been a pavement but one that is used for anything but.

Typically these spaces are controlled by the family whose house is beside and above it and used for whatever they feel they would like to do with it which does not include allowing people to walk on it. A drink stall, a food stall, a stall selling local ice-cream or a stall selling second hand books. A stall selling barbecued sausages, a stall selling cream cakes or a stall selling car parts the choice is yours. Or if there is not a stall the owner of the house (or a close family member) will be stripping down mopeds and conducting his mechanics business at home. Or a pet shop will be in full swing with dogs and cats in cages preventing anybody from even thinking about stepping foot on the space. And if for any reason the family that lives beside this walkway should have no interest in it then cars and mopeds will be parked like sardines in a can, covering every inch of the concrete pathway. There is without exception no space available in any sense for the occasional walker and so they must join the cars and mopeds on the road.

Not that many people walk around town! Mopeds are in, walking is out!

The new is built next to the old
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

Buildings generally lack any architectural integrity. They are faceless structures designed with economy and space utilization in mind. They also do not have many windows in them and the windows that are there are generally covered from top to bottom in bars or washing. Suddenly though a real gem of a building will spring out, a family house beautifully designed with large windows and no bars, a coffee shop built with greenness and openness in mind or a kindergarten built like a castle and showing fun at every corner. Suddenly one will find a superbly designed building without neon signs and flashing lights and without bars covering windows and darkening rooms. But one thing will remain with these outstanding features; the space outside will still not be used as a walkway!

With the usual flat roof, the typical tiled outside and the small barred windows most building resemble square blocks, be they brown, white or green in color and often the only distinguishing feature is in the color itself. Due to the pollution that exists in most cities in Taiwan a black deposit builds itself up on all surfaces inside and out within a week. So whether the building is new or ten years old they tend to merge into one. And what results is a square and black structure resembling a prison and with no space to walk outside of it.

Living without carpets and sofas shocked me when I first arrived. The image of walking on a solidly tiled floor gave me no thoughts of relaxation and how was I supposed to relax on a sofa made of wood? A beautifully made and designed sofa indeed but it just gave me no feelings for relaxing in front of the television for a whole evening. The lack of carpets I have got used to and I admit now prefer without. It is so ideal to walk on tiled floors. They are so easy to clean and serious money is saved on not having to buy carpets and vacuum cleaners and no more hours are spent trying to remove the wine stains and muddy boot prints that seem to be drawn to all carpets on a daily basis. Furthermore, due to living in a generally hot climate, tiled floors provoke a cooling atmosphere whilst carpets would definitely not.

The lack of comfortable sofas and chairs, I do have a serious problem with. A wooden chair, with a cushion of course can be very comfortable. For the short term that is. It is comfortable for sitting down on and eating dinner from or for sitting down on briefly to watch the news before going out to work. It is though not comfortable for throwing yourself onto after a hard day at the office and impossible to fall asleep on never mind lying down comfortably on. So carpets I can do with out and now do not miss, but sofas I miss desperately. Is there a solution? There is one and it is called air-conditioning the house: in this way comfortable sofas can be brought in without fear of cockroaches setting up shop in the base of it.

Returning to the outside there is one feature that I have not talked about and one feature that does help me to find my way should I be lost. I mentioned before about the serious lack of space but something does contradict that. The empty lots and half-finished structures that abound and that are present on most streets. Walking along the streets buildings fight for space, reaching skywards in an attempt to see daylight, structures squash themselves into spaces ill-designed for living in and not a space is left bare to lay a brick. And then suddenly will be found an empty lot, large enough for a grand and airy family house or an office block off immense proportions, yet all that exists in this space is a budding entrepreneur selling car parking space to searching drivers. The reasons for these spaces are numerous and the most common one being that it is owned by a rich and wealthy citizen that has forgotten that he owns it.

Another reason is the recent recession that has bit into every corner of society, that those with the land cannot afford to build on it and that nobody wants to buy it. And another is that the owner is making quite a nice income from selling parking spaces for car owners at grossly inflated prices.

That about covers the empty lots, but whats of greater interest and something that helps me to find my way are the numerous half-finished buildings that dot the roads. Buildings that have been started with largeness and importance in mind yet lie crumbling in neglect, a bare frame remaining to show what once might have been. My favorite building is one like this and it sits there massive in its proportions and prospects, yet work stopped on it decades ago. I have been told by various sources that this particular building has a history, one that had no intent of being completed. It comes from two rich friends who built up industries from nothing and became extremely wealthy as a result of their endeavors. One friend built this very successful hotel in the heart of the city and it became the hotel to which the rich and influential would frequent when in town. But the two friends fell out in a very serious way and so the trouble started.

To ruin his friends hotel and the heart of his success the ex-friend started to build this massive structure directly across the road from the hotel and high enough as to block the advertised "harbor view" of that hotel. Whether he had a specific building in mind (another hotel for instance or a shopping mall) one will never know, as when the building reached the sky and blocked all views from the hotel all work stopped. So should one walk out of the expensive hotel a monstrosity faces them. And should a guest look out of their window at the "lovely sea view", all they will get is an empty concrete structure devoid of walls and windows and any character that might have been part of the end result.

A building that never quite got finished
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

That is the reason for one unfinished building lying to waste for ten years or more. It does not give a reason for the thousands of other half-finished and wasted structures littering every street in Taiwan. Maybe other friends took similar paths but I think not. Many of the unfinished buildings are the result of the recession and thus a lack of cash and others resulted from damage due to the earthquakes that have previously hit Taiwan hard. Others still may have other reasons for lying unwanted and to ruins but that remains an unknown quantity to myself.

Having opened up Taiwanese Architecture and my reasons for sometimes not being able to find my way around, I have not said much about my feelings whilst here. Although I have seemingly reduced buildings into classless structures that are dark and resemble prisons, they do have quality and style. I feel that more emphasis is placed on the internal design that the exterior and if one walks into a drab and dreary building more often than not they will find paradise inside. Well-designed interiors using minimum space wisely often produces a warm and cheery place to reside in even if the outside is devoid of style and presence.

A Back Street Stall
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

Walking along the road and lost the streets have great character. Families are out and about, stalls are vying for customers and with all the neon signs and flashing lights the place is alive at all times of the day and night. Character exists not in the design of buildings or in the drab quality of the exteriors but in the people that live in them and the happy and carefree life that they lead. Nowhere can darkness and silence to be found and everywhere one walks are voices and lights, showing life and feeling at every corner. So regardless of the facelessness of the streets that one walks it is a face of life.

It still does not help me to find my way, but at least when I am lost I can enjoy the atmosphere as I try to find an empty lot or half-finished building that I recognize.