Seen in the street

Small time architectural observations made while cycling and walking.

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It was already walking with my camera in my hand; the sun was just about to set, the light was kind-of-beautiful, the sky was clear. So I took this picture because I thought that the contrast of the deteriorating paint of the white building looked pretty tangible. However; returning home and turning on the computer I noticed that this picture captures some of the incidental qualities of the (here we go again) illegal architecture of Taipei. First of all; the roof lines are so sharp that you nearly want to print this out, cut out the sky and hang it on your wall. Secondly, the different layers that are projected in the image provoke a kind of feeling of anonymity in the city that perhaps explain why it could even be possible for the illegal to thrive so well within the boundaries of a system.

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https://soundcloud.com/stimming/diy056-window-shopping

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Courtyard

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The Rinzai Zen temple in Northern Taipei. This temple built during the Japanese rule of Taiwan lacks the elaborate decorations of most Chinese style temples. Instead; focus is put onto the wooden connections that do not require any metal connectors. The wood used in this temple is Taiwanese Red Cedar but it still goes by the Japanese name 'Hinoki' because this wood was mainly harvested in Taiwan under Japanese rule. Due to the thread of extinction, this wood is not being harvested any more in Taiwan, instead; Japanese Red Cedar is used nowadays maintaining the temple.

Oh, and why do I post this other than the fact it looks quite brilliant? The untreated wood smells wonderful; even with national highways 1,2,3 and a dozen scooter fume producing avenues in the near vicinity.

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When I look down from my apartment to the east I see this. A narrow alley which is nearly entirely filled with 'illegal' architecture. In the daytime the chairs in the little pocket of public space are usually taken by a few elder ladies that live in the surrounding buildings; at least, I suppose they live here.

But where does this urban shape come from? Browsing through historical aerial pictures and maps I found out that the curved path with the T-crossing stems from old small scale farmlands. Those lands have been incorporated by the expanding city during the Japanese rule of Taiwan which spanned between 1895 and Japan's defeat in the Second World War.

The second image shows the development of my building block. In 1934 Japanese family houses announced the approach of the city starting from the large road (Roosevelt Road) outwards into the farmlands.

The original parcelling of the small scale farms and the buildings that started cluttering around it was mapped by the city government (now being under control of the ROC) in the early 1950's. In this way a lot of 'illegal' architecture was legalised. Surely enough, in this way the old parcelling managed to survive the drastic urbanisation of the ROC after WWII and remains the blueprint of the city up to today. Besides; making 'illegal' legal by registration and mapping became common practice after the 1950's precedent and still determines the city's general appearance.

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I was asked by my lecturer to produce three collages about anonymity in the city. What is anonymous architecture? When is a person anonymous in a city?

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Street light. Stage light.

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Creating a barrier between public and private Taiwan style. With an average of 19,563 people per square km in the built up areas of Taipei, this city is amongst the most densely populated cities in the developed world. The majority of it's inhabitants live in apartments that take up one floor in one of the buildings pictured here. To enlarge living area private outdoor areas at ground floor are often used as an extension of the living room and as a barrier between the street and the house. The apartments on higher floors do the same by barring the windows and filling these open air alcoves with clothes racks or pot plants. A next step would be to replace the metal bars by windows that protrude outwards, extending the living room by about half a metre.

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Behind the busy avenues, Taipei's urban fabric is built up out of small back streets like this one. Partially due to the incidentally articulate quality of the stage set by all kinds of different street lights it feels very safe here; unlike most night time back alleys in other cities. Besides that; note how the cluttering disorder is only an arrangement of reoccurring rectangular elements. AC units, barred windows, street signs, walls and of course written characters that traditionally are attempts to fill up a square.

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What are they thinking?

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First road cycling in Taipei last week. Traffic in the city is super hectic but definitely fast enough for a good interval training (1km 45 kph - 75 seconds of recovery at a red traffic light - repeat indefinitely) Once outside the city it's beautiful. The climb on Jiannan Road ends with this view over Taipei.

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Coming from the Netherlands where everything, especially buildings, look the same and where nothing is left to chance, arriving in Taipei struck me with the feeling that this city is one big chaos. But well, of course it isn't. Look at this road signage, it's similar everywhere and creates a superficial layer of coherence in the urban tissue. But is there more? Is there a systematic of urban motives of Taipei? Probably yes, and maybe I'll find it during my stay the coming months.