Tainan, Taiwan, September 17, 2013
“Towards Seventy Years: National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) Architecture Exhibition and Forum”, an event to commemorate the achievements and influences of the NCKU Department of Architecture in Taiwan, took place at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park, Taipei, starting from September 14 to September 22.
Pride as the oldest department at the university, the event reflected on the department’s contributions in Taiwan’s architectural history since its establishment while looking ahead to possibilities of creating even more extraordinary records in the future, according to NCKU Architecture Foundation Director Pau-Sen Chen.
During the opening ceremony of the event, four well-known architects in Taiwan including Er-Pan Kao, Hsiu-Lian Wang, Ji-Huang Li and Mai Chen, who were also NCKU alumni, were invited to share their memories at NCKU.
Professor Jang-Chih Wang gave a speech titled “What can NCKU Architecture still do for Taiwan?” while an exhibition planned by Professor Shuen Chiou Bo took place during the event to demonstrate outstanding students’ architectural works and domestic award-winning architectural design works in the past.
The architectural works within NCKU in the past 70 years were also presented in the exhibition to share with the public the history of architecture education in Taiwan.
Besides, 5 sessions of forum titled “Cross Generation” organized by Architect Ching-Haw Chang, inviting people in the architecture field across three generations to talk about the past and future of Taiwan’s architecture.
NCKU Alumni Er-Pan Kao dedicated the rapid growth of NCKU Architecture to the senior students despite the lack of resources during their times, and wished that the department will contribute even more to Taiwan’s architecture field in the future.
The first Taiwanese post-war female architect Hsiu-Lian Wang, an outstanding female NCKU alumnus, returned to the university to work as a teaching assistant right after graduation.
Seeing the many talented people at NCKU who place great importance on cultural assets has inspired her to collect past students’ works in the department and exhibit them in the event.
The first theme of the special exhibition was based on students’ architectural works during the period between the early years of NCKU as the Taiwan Provincial College of Engineering till the end of 1970s.
These works included over 400 pieces of architectural design works, rendering works and artistic works, as well as precious historical manuscripts which recorded the transition of architecture education style from Beaux-style to modernism.
The most valuable works of celebrated architects such as Pao-Teh Han, Zu-Yuan Li, Mai Chen and others at their prime were on display, tracing the footprints left by their growth and showing their unrestrained imaginations through their works during that time.
The next theme revolved around the achievements of former NCKU Architecture students and alumni in the Taiwanese architecture field, demonstrating their successful and unique architectural works to the public.
These alumni, many who have won architecture awards such as the Far East Architecture Award, Architect Magazine Awards and Taiwan Architecture Award, were invited to exhibit their works in this event, thus showing their dedication, commitment, professionalism and outstanding performance in Taiwan’s architecture field.
Award-winning works by students in the 21st century was the third theme of the exhibition. With NCKU actively pursuing education reform which has also impacted architecture education in the university, the younger generation students have won numerous domestic and international awards through their architecture works, which have shown tremendous diversity and potential as well as strong spirit of the department’s earlier years
The background exhibition titled “Memorable Family of NCKU Architecture” presented the chronology of events at the NCKU Architecture during its 70-year history, as well as records of students’ and teachers’ daily lives at the department.
Meanwhile, the “Cross-Generation” forum was held in many forms, including debates on various different issues such as the department’s views on environmental design, architecture education, public administration policy and the future of Taiwan’s architecture.
In addition, 10 consecutive talks titled “Telescope, Microscope, Perspective” were given by 10 alumni from different generations, where each speaker was only given 6 minutes to talk about the past, present and future of the department.
The schedule of the five sessions of forum is as follow: 1st session – “NCKU Perspective – Sustainable Tradition” (9/14 – 2:00 pm); 2nd session – “NCKU Telescope – Expected Future” (9/14 – 6:30pm); 3rd session – “NCKU Prism – Multiple View of the World” (9/15 – 2:00pm); 4th session – “NCKU Microscope – Variable Present” (9/21 – 2:00pm); 5th session – “Huashan Forum – Outside View of NCKU” (9/21 – 6:30pm).
SOURCE / National Cheng Kung University Taiwan
