Author／Photographer： Chris van Laak
In 1697, the capital of the Qing Empire was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, cities in the world, with a population of about 1 million. Exact numbers are obviously hard to come by for the time, but it is safe to say that from the Forbidden City, the Kangxi Emperor (康熙皇帝）ruled over one of the biggest and most populous realms in the world.
The same year, at the edge of his empire, the first subjects of his set foot on a fertile plain at the confluence of several rivers in northern Taiwan. The travelers, led by a man named Yu Yonghe (郁永河), were true vanguards, even though they were not the first people there. The plain had since time immemorial been the hunting grounds of Austronesian communities, and archeologists later found that it had seen human populations for thousands of years.
However, Yu’s arrival marked the beginning of a development that would change the course of history. A little over 300 years later, there are no longer any fertile hunting grounds—instead, the plain is home to over 6 million Taipei and New Taipei City residents, with world-class infrastructure and the highest building in the world from 2004 to 2009.
While the cultural impact of the Qing settlers is still visible in today’s metropolitan Taipei, those who had been there before them are largely forgotten. Granted, the oversized boulevard leading to the Presidential Office Building is named after them, but the language(s) of the Ketagalan（凱達格蘭） and most of their culture have been lost.
Qing Taipei 清代
The first official Qing-era settlement in the Taipei Basin was established in 1709. Over the centuries, homesteads became towns, towns became a bustling city, the city became the provincial capital, and it also remained the seat of government when the province became a Japanese colony and later the Republic of China.
The road ahead was rocky though. The Qing Empire was displeased with some of its subjects being in Taiwan in the first place. In contrast to the colonial endeavors of other nations, the empire’s view on expanding its territory overseas was ambivalent, and it initially forbade and later discouraged migration, as it understood it primarily as an attempt of its subjects to evade its immediate rule.
Even though the empire in 1738 prohibited settlers from acquiring Ketagalan-owned land—a move that was less about protecting indigenous rights and more about its unwillingness to deal with conflicts stirred by settlers—the area’s rural economy flourished. The land acquisition ban wasn’t resolutely enforced, and tea, camphor, and other products were exported to the mainland.
A prime example of the wealth amassed by rural settlers is the Lin Family Mansion and Garden in New Taipei City’s Banqiao District（新北市板橋區林家花園）. The compound of the Lins, one of Taiwan’s wealthiest families until this day, is now open to visitors, but at the time when it was built it housed up to 30 militiamen to prevent any invasion amid feuds among the local gentry.
Alongside the homesteads, towns started to grow at riverside sites suitable for port infrastructure. Most prominent among them were Bangka in today’s Wanhua District and Twatutia in today’s Datong District. Both areas still feature well-preserved 18th century buildings, such as the Bopiliao Historical Block（剝皮寮歷史街區） and on Dihua Street（迪化街）.
With the growth in trade, the empire realized how profitable Taiwan had become. Only after others had set their sights on the island though—Japan had for example conducted a “punitive exhibition” into southern Taiwan in 1874—did it decide to strengthen its foothold. In 1884, a walled city was built about 1km from the bank of the Tamsui River between Bangka and Twatutia, and three years later the new city—Taipei—was made the provincial capital.
The walls never had to repel invaders though; the island’s handover to Japan was decided without shots being fired in Taiwan during the First Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895, and the walls were soon dismantled.
Japanese Taipei 日治時期
Taiwan was the testbed of Japanese colonialism, and Taipei, or Taihoku as it was called then, was where the efforts ordered by Tokyo were coordinated.
Many public buildings in Taipei are from the Japanese colonial era between 1895 and 1945. The most prominent among them are built in a style strongly influenced by European architecture, which had become popular during the Meiji Restoration in the 19th century when Japan looked abroad to modernize its ways.
Some of the buildings still serve their original function, such as the former Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan（台灣總督府） that is now the Presidential Office Building（總統府）. Others, such as the main building of Jian Cheng Elementary School（建成國小）, saw an upgrade. It housed the Taipei City Government from 1945 to 1994, and is now the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei（台北當代藝術館）.
The capital’s population grew at least fivefold during the Japanese era, and Taipei evolved from a conglomerate of towns to a fully integrated city. The infrastructure and home building boom brought previously unseen architectural styles, such as Japanese bungalows that civil servants sent to the colony preferred, while styles developed during the Qing dynasty were continued—local builders did not completely “relearn” their craft because the government had changed.
At this point, it also gets complicated to tell apart the increasingly eclectic architectural styles and eras. And it gets even more complicated to tell whether a site is in its original state or whether it was rebuilt at one point—in most cases that means after the Allied forces dropped about 3,800 bombs on Taipei amid efforts to defeat Japan in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
Taipei in the Republic of China 民國時期
Once more, population growth played a large role in the development of Taipei’s outward appearance—over 2 million people migrated from China to Taiwan alongside the ROC government around 1949; they needed new homes. A rather pragmatic style of concrete building designed to efficiently house as many people as possible became popular and prevailed for decades. Taipei was initially seen as a temporary seat of government, as well as a temporary place of residence for mainlanders who sought to return to China.
Meanwhile, representative buildings were built in a style meant to convey the splendor of Chinese culture, such as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (國立中正紀念堂) and the nearby National Theater(國家表演藝術中心) and National Concert Hall（國家音樂廳）.
The colorful style reminiscent of Buddhist and Taoist temples was also used to rebuild three of the five original city gates. The appearance of the East Gate, South Gate and Auxiliary South Gate evokes a past that never was, while only the plain-looking North Gate remains in its original state.
In the more recent past, however, Taipei has made great efforts to restore buildings from different epochs of its past. Especially Japanese-style bungalows have seen a revival; many of them were brought back to their former glory, while others—often covered by temporary steel structures to prevent rain damage—are awaiting restoration.
A place where at least two eras come together is the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial House（逸仙公園） near Taipei Main Station（台北車站）. Sun, one of the “founding fathers” of the ROC, stayed in the building, then named the Hotel Umeyashiki, for a few days in 1913. The building was destroyed during an air raid in 1945, but thanks to its historical importance it was rebuilt just a year later—not in the style of an ROC-era memorial though, but as a modest Japanese building.
