Postwar Taiwan's Modernist Architectural Portraits: Starting from the 1967 Award List

30-Second Overview: On April 30, 1967, the first Golden Pin Architecture Award was presented to seven architects. The list included Yang Chuo-cheng, who built the Grand Hotel and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, alongside Chen Chi-kuan, who planted the seeds of modern architectural education at Tunghai University, and Hsieh Tse-lan, who designed the Zhongshan Building in Yangmingshan. This list demonstrates that the postwar Taiwanese architectural scene consisted of two coexisting paths: one being a palace style symbolizing national legitimacy, and the other being Modernism, which brought Bauhaus and International Style into campuses, libraries, and public spaces.

April 30, 1967: A List That Brought Two Paths Together

The winners of the first Golden Pin Architecture Award totaled seven: Lin Ching-feng, Wang Da-hong, Chen Chi-kuan, Chen Jen-ho, Shen Tsu-hai, Yang Chuo-cheng, and Hsieh Tse-lan. ¹² Looking at this list today, what is most noteworthy is the diversity of people placed together.

Yang Chuo-cheng's name is linked to the Grand Hotel, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, and the National Concert Hall—representing postwar official commemorative architecture; meanwhile, Wang Da-hong and Chen Chi-kuan were part of the generation that brought modernist training back to Taiwan. ¹² The fact that these two groups received awards in the same year and for the same prize illustrates one thing more directly than any periodization in architectural history: palace styles and Modernism were not a relationship of one succeeding the other in 1960s Taiwan, but rather two paths being built and recognized simultaneously.

Yang Chuo-cheng: Building Palace Styles as the Face of the Nation

Born in Fengrun, Hebei in 1915, Yang Chuo-cheng studied Chemistry at Nankai University and Mechanical Engineering at the National Southwestern Combined University. In 1939, he transferred to Zhongshan University and obtained a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1941. He arrived in Taiwan in 1946, serving in the Urban Planning Department of the Taipei City Government, and founded the Hemo Architect Studio in 1953. ¹

Recognized by Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling, he undertook many of postwar Taiwan's most prominent landmarks: the Shilin Official Residence (1950), the Zhongxing Assembly Hall in Zhongxing New Village (1959), the Cihou Mausoleum (originally Cihou Guest House, 1959), the Taipei Mosque (1960), Lishan Guest House (1965), Kaohsiung Grand Hotel (1971), the renovation of the Grand Hotel (1973), the Central Bank Building (1979, 1984, in collaboration with Chen Chi-kuan), the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (1980), and the National Concert Hall and National Theater (1987). ¹

Notably, his hand was not limited to palaces. The Taipei Mosque was the result of his research into Islamic architecture, while the National Taiwan University Gymnasium (1962) leaned toward a modern style, and the Central Century Building was one of his high-rise office works in the 1980s. ¹ However, when the state required a facade to represent "Chinese cultural legitimacy," he was the one they sought. He passed away in Los Angeles on November 26, 2006, at the age of 92. ¹

Wang Da-hong: Experimenting First with a Private Residence

Wang Da-hong moved from Hong Kong to Taipei in the spring of 1952. The following year, with the support of his father, Wang Chung-hui, he established his own studio and built a house for himself on Jianguo South Road. Completed in 1953, this residence was his first work after arriving in Taiwan and is frequently cited in Taiwanese architectural history as the first modern building. At a time when Chinese palace style was the mainstream for public buildings in Taiwan, he chose to use a private residence rather than a public building to conduct the first experiment in "modernizing Chinese architecture." ³

The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall came later. The client expected a grand, traditional heavy roof; his first proposal was rejected because it lacked traditional elements. After revisions, he incorporated abstracted upturned eaves onto a modern structure. Completed in 1972, this building became one of Taipei's most important landmarks and is frequently used in Taiwanese architectural education as a case study on "how not to merely copy tradition." For his full biography and the reconstruction of his residence, see the Wang Da-hong section in the Taiwanese Architecture entry.

Chen Chi-kuan: The Tunghai Campus and Taiwan's First Architecture Department

Born in Beijing in 1921, Chen Chi-kuan graduated from the Department of Architecture at Central University in 1944. He went to the United States in 1948, obtaining a Master's in Architecture from the University of Illinois the following year, before further studies in the Art Department at UCLA. In 1951, he received notice from Josep Lluís Sert of Harvard University and moved to Boston, working at Sert's architectural firm, and served as a lecturer in architectural design at MIT from 1952 to 1954. ²

In 1954, upon the recommendation of Sert, I.M. Pei invited him to collaborate with Chang Chao-kang on the planning of the Tunghai University campus. The Department of Architecture at Tunghai University was established in 1960, and he served as its first chairman. He opened an architectural studio in Taipei in 1965, became the Dean of the College of Engineering at Tunghai University in 1980, and retired in 1986. ²

His works at Tunghai include the President's Residence, the Guest House, the old Architecture Building, the "Methodist House" (1963, colloquially known as the "Women's White House") for single female faculty, the Art Center (1963), and the Luce Memorial Chapel (1963). Subsequent works include St. Paul's Anglican Church in Kaohsiung (1965), Taipei Songshan International Airport (1971, in collaboration with Wang Da-hong and Shen Tsu-hai), and Taipei Main Station (1989, in collaboration with Shen Tsu-hai and Kuo Mao-lin). ² The controversy regarding the design attribution of the Luce Memorial Chapel is fully addressed in the Taichung City entry and is not repeated here.

He was awarded the National Award for Arts in 2004 and passed away in California, USA, on June 5, 2007, at the age of 85. ² Tunghai University had originally planned to confer an honorary doctorate upon him during the graduation ceremony on June 16 of that year, but he did not live to receive it. ²

Hsieh Tse-lan: Completing the Zhongshan Building in Thirteen Months

Born in Hunan in 1925, Hsieh Tse-lan studied at the Department of Architecture at Central University, which had moved to Chongqing during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. In 1949, she came to Taiwan through a recruitment by the Railway Administration, participating in the planning and design of several railway stations, warehouses, training centers, and dormitories; the old Banqiao Station (1951) is one of the works from this period. In 1956, she and her husband, Fu Chi-kuan, resigned from the Railway Administration to establish the Tse-Chun Architect Studio. ⁴

In 1965, to commemorate the centenary of Sun Yat-sen's birth, Chiang Kai-shek decided to construct the Zhongshan Building in Yangmingshan and appointed Hsieh Tse-lan as the architect; the entire project was completed in just thirteen months. ⁴ This project made her one of the most famous architects of the time and earned her the title of Taiwan's first female architect. She subsequently designed the Jingmei Girls' Senior High School, the library of the Hsinchu Teachers College (now National Tsing Hua University), the chapel within the Weidao Junior High School (colloquially known as the "Weidao Ark"), and the Sun Moon Lake Teachers' Association building. ⁴

In 1969, she and her husband launched the "Garden New Town" vacation community in the mountains of Xindian, which was Taiwan's first large-scale and well-known hillside development. At the time, it was a luxury residential area second only to Yangmingshan, attracting many celebrities. Later, as construction on the Feicui Reservoir began, the site of subsequent developments was designated as a water source control zone where construction was prohibited; this led to financial ruin, and Garden New Town declined from its former glory into dilapidation. ⁴

Categorically, she is difficult to place. The National Taiwan Museum of History describes her as an expressionist representative who carved out a niche with retro, courtly architecture during the postwar era, rather than a follower of Modernism; though she received a modern architectural education, she delivered palace-like exteriors for political assignments like the Zhongshan Building. ⁴ She is included in this portrait precisely because she stands at the intersection of these two paths: her formal style served politics, but her engineering methods were derived from modern training.

Han Pao-te: Turning Architecture into Something to Teach, Write, and Exhibit

Born in Rizhao, Shandong in 1934, Han Pao-te came to Taiwan with his father in 1949. He graduated from the Department of Architectural Engineering at National Cheng Kung University in 1958, went to the United States in 1964, and subsequently obtained a Master's in Architecture from Harvard University and a Master's in Art from Princeton University. ⁵

In 1967, he returned to Taiwan to take over as the head of the Department of Architectural Engineering at Tunghai University. During his tenure, he promoted the construction of a new department building, changed the department name to "Department of Architecture," and transitioned the curriculum to a five-year system. In 1968, he co-founded the Han Kuang Architect Studio with his brother, Han Yin-te, and friend Pan Yu-kuang. His representative works include the Kenting Youth Activity Center, the Guanyin Pavilion Youth Activity Center in Penghu, the Luoshao Mountain Lodge in the Central Cross-Island Highway, the Xitou and Tianxiang Youth Activity Centers, and the Hsinchu Nanyuan designed for Wang Ti-wu, the founder of United Daily News. ⁵

In 1977, he became the Dean of the College of Science and Engineering at National Chung Hsing University. In 1981, he served as the director of the preparatory office for the National Museum of Natural Science, becoming its first director in 1987, a position he held for fourteen years. In 1996, he became the first president of the Tainan National University of the Arts, and later served as the director of the World Religions Museum and the chairman of the National Culture and Arts Foundation. ⁵

Much of his influence lies not in blueprints, but in books and institutions: The Spiritual Dimension of Architecture, Perspective in Architecture, Letters to Young Architects, Han Pao-te on Aesthetics, and the draft museum law he co-authored with Chang Yu-teng and others. ⁵ In 2006, he received the first Architecture Award at the 10th National Award for Arts; in 2014, he received the 34th Executive Yuan Culture Award. He passed away at NTU Hospital on November 20, 2014, at the age of 80. ⁵

Wang Chiu-hua: Changing Public Architecture Starting from Libraries

Born in Beijing in 1925, Wang Chiu-hua ranked first in her entrance exams for the Department of Architecture at Central University in Chongqing in 1942. After graduating in 1946, she went to the United States, studying at the University of Washington's Department of Architecture and later at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, obtaining her Master's in 1949 as one of the first Asian women to study there. ⁶⁷

In 1950, she joined the office of architect Percival Goodman, becoming a co-principal of the firm in 1975, after working in the American architectural profession for thirty years. Goodman was an expert in modern Jewish synagogue design, having designed over fifty in the United States; Wang Chiu-hua served as a lead designer on many of them. ⁶⁷

She returned to Taiwan in 1979, and her first work was the Institute of American Studies at Academia Sinica (now the library of the Institute of East Asian, European, and American Studies). This small two-to-three-story building used red brick and bush-hammered stone facades to echo local materials; the first floor featured a double-height space to accommodate the flood-prone terrain, while double walls and sloped roofs addressed Taiwan's hot and humid climate. The western-facing side utilized slanted brick walls for sun shading and facade rhythm. ⁷

In 1981, she established a joint studio with Pan Chi. In 1985, the Chang Ching-yu Memorial Library at Yuan Ze University was completed, breaking new ground in professional library design in Taiwan; she is thus known as the "Mother of Library Design in Taiwan." This building eschews exaggerated forms, focusing instead on book storage space, reading rooms, and visual transparency, clarifying the relationship between people, books, and their environment. ⁷ In 2019, she received the 21st National Award for Arts, becoming the first female recipient in the architecture category. ⁶ She passed away on June 14, 2021, at the age of 96. ⁷

Two Paths Coexisting, Not One Replacing the Other

Placing these five individuals back into that 1967 list reveals a fact that defies intuition: Modernism in postwar Taiwanese architecture did not gain legitimacy by defeating palace styles, but was recognized within the same award system. Yang Chuo-cheng built the "face" the state required; the others built schools, libraries, churches, stations, and residences.

The true watershed occurred after the 1970s. Palace styles receded as the need for political declaration diminished, but the question of how public buildings should commemorate and whom they should serve did not disappear. The "abstracted tradition" handled by Wang Da-hong at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the "form following politics" encountered by Hsieh Tse-lan at the Zhongshan Building, the institutional frameworks established by Han Pao-te in museums and architectural education, and the publicness advocated by Wang Chiu-hua in libraries are all different answers to the same question.

Further Reading:

• Taiwanese Architecture — The overall context from stone houses and Fort San Domingo to colonial government buildings and contemporary public architecture.
• Taichung City — The full section on the design attribution controversy of the Luce Memorial Chapel and the Tunghai campus.

References