
Tseng-Yung Wang Director of Bigda Studio
Chun-Hsiung Wang Director, Department of Architectural Design, Shih Chien University
DH Café (No. 153, Section 3, Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei City)
One lecture for $500, including special snacks (sandwiches, desserts, drinks), and 10% discount on event book purchases.
After World War II, Taiwan's architecture underwent profound changes, with an impact that has not been closed to date. First, the historicism of the prewar architectural mainstream was replaced almost overnight by modernist architecture. Secondly, the construction professionals were mainly occupied by Japanese people before the war, and the vacuum left behind by Japanese people after the war, was mostly occupied by people from mainland Taiwan after the relocation of the National People's Government. Moreover, there was no professional system of architects before the war, and with the advent of post-war rule by the People's Government, it was imposed in Taiwan. Finally, university architecture education, which was unheard of before the war, also emerged in Taiwan. This series of lectures uses this historical change as a scripture, covering four themes of Modernism, Christian Architecture, Roughism, and Chinese Modern Architecture, and attempts to open up a discussion of this little-noticed history of architecture. The theme is “Theme 1: Rude and Poetic Post-War Architecture in Taiwan - The Church of Christ and Modern Architecture in Taiwan”.
During the 1950s and 1960s, various Christian and Catholic denominations established missionary and educational outposts across Taiwan, leaving behind five notable architectural landmarks: the campus of Tunghai University (Taichung), St. Christopher’s Catholic Church (Taipei), the Chapel of the Holy Cross (Jingliao, Tainan), St. Joseph Technical High School (Taitung), and Sacred Heart Girls’ High School (Bali, Taipei).
The Tunghai University campus—designed by a young I.M. Pei in collaboration with landscape-savvy Chi-Kuan Chen and rigorous structuralist Chao-Kang Chang—embodied a fascinating paradox: traditional aesthetics cloaking modernist bones. St. Christopher’s Church, originally built for U.S. military personnel in Taiwan, exemplified functionalist expression. The Chapel of the Holy Cross, remotely designed by Gottfried Böhm (1920–2021), merged European architectural visions with local Taiwanese craftsmanship. At St. Joseph Technical High School, Swiss architect Justus Dahinden (1925–2020) channeled Le Corbusier’s influence while experimenting with spatial forms. Meanwhile, Sacred Heart Girls’ High School at the foot of Guanyinshan realized Kenzo Tange’s (1913–2005) idealism of interactive campus spaces, demonstrating a dynamic dialogue between Modernism and Japanese Metabolism.
Though not designed by Taiwanese architects, these religious buildings took root in Taiwan, directly engaging with the land and its people. They reveal contemporaneous construction methods, social conditions, and how architects of the era interpreted modernist principles.