By the corner of Yanping South Road and Boai Road in Taipei, not far from the city’s historic North Gate, there stands a two-story, neo-Renaissance building known as Futai Street Mansion.
Situated in a busy part of the city and flanked by local eateries and camera shops, the mansion is perhaps easy for the casual passerby to miss. But it possesses a distinction and history that few other buildings can match: now more than a century old, it is the only existing stand-alone commercial structure built during the early years of Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945).
The mansion was extensively restored in 2007 and is now open to the public as a museum. In 2009, Chen Kuo-tzu, a retired lawyer, adopted the building and became its curator. She is the only individual in Taiwan to have received government permission to adopt heritage sites, with her other adoptee being the Taipei Story House, a guest house built in 1914.
According to Vita Yeh, manager of the museum’s planning and promotion department, the 156-square-meter structure is a witness to the old Taipei and serves as an entry point for anyone seeking to understand the city’s history.
“While the Taipei Story House features fairytale-like surroundings and is great for family visits, Futai Street Mansion attracts people who have a nostalgic interest in the history of Taipei,” she said.
Yeh explained that Yanping South Road originally took shape at the end of the Ching dynasty (1644-1911) and was named Futai Street, meaning Taiwan Governor’s street. It was then the urban center of the city, where all the important government agencies were situated.
After the Japanese took control of Taiwan in 1895, the area continued to flourish as it was designated especially for Japanese residents.
Futai Street Mansion was built in 1910 by Japanese architect Chuuzou Takaishi. Like many young Japanese architects in the early 20th century, Takaishi wanted to give his work a western flavor, and as a result the mansion is indelibly marked with noticeable European features.
“Many Japanese architects of the time had studied in Western countries,” Yeh said. “They came to Taiwan seeking a stage where they could bring what they had learned into full play.”
According to Yeh, almost all the buildings on Futai Street, renamed Yanping South Road in the late 1940s, were built in a similar European style, but now that the other structures have been torn down, Futai Street Mansion is the only surviving specimen and is therefore particularly precious for its historic value.
“Some of the building’s architectural characteristics are now rarely found,” Yeh noted. “For example, the dormer windows on the mansion’s roof can now be spotted nowhere else but on the exterior of Taipei Guest House and the office building of the Control Yuan.”
Takaishi used the mansion as his office—a sign of how highly he esteemed the building among his own works. “He showcased his architectural talents and achievements by inviting clients to his office,” Yeh said, adding that in his time Takaishi was a well-known architect who took part in several major construction projects in Taiwan, including the Sun Moon Lake hydroelectric power plant and a memorial hall now known as the National Taiwan Museum.
When Takaishi and his family left Taiwan in the 1930s, they sold the property to a Japanese wine dealer. Ownership of the building again changed hands in 1946, when it was transferred to a local newspaper known as the People’s Advocate.
“The newspaper considered its mission to give voice to the opinions and concerns of ordinary citizens,” Yeh said. It was thought to be a leftist news organization and as one can imagine it was not very well received by the staunchly anti-communist government at the time, she added.
The newspaper was forced to shut down in 1947, after what has come to be known as the Feb. 28 incident, in which hundreds of demonstrators were shot by the Nationalist government forces who had taken control of Taiwan.
Afterward, two men closely associated with the People’s Advocate—its founder Song Fei-ru and its editor-in-chief Wang Tien-ting—suddenly disappeared one day under questionable circumstances.
Their disappearance and their association with Futai mansion have given the structure a certain mystique, according to Yeh. “The building can be said to be a firsthand witness to the Feb. 28 incident,” she said.
The mansion was left unoccupied until it was eventually turned into a housing complex for officials of the Ministry of National Defense in 1949, with up to six families living there at one time.
The last residents moved out after the building was designated a historic treasure by the Taipei City Government in 1997. According to Yeh, four of these families have revisited the museum since it opened to the public last year.
Old houses play an enormously important role in keeping memories of the past alive, Chen, the curator, said. “That is why I have been so dedicated to preserving Taipei Story House and Futai mansion and why I’ve adopted these sites.”
“I hope that when people visit these places, they can be reminded of the old lifestyle and intrigued by history.”
To introduce the history of Taipei to more people through the legendary mansion, Yeh and her management team began organizing monthly walking tours in the neighborhood this year. The tours introduce visitors not only to the mansion itself, but also to such things as food, architecture and literature.
An exhibition titled “Memories of Old Shanghai in Taipei” was hosted this April as well. Asked to explain the historic connection between Shanghai and Taipei, Yeh said the vicinity of Futai Street Mansion was once packed with shops operated by Shanghai businessmen after the Japanese government withdrew.
“Some of these old shops such as Long’s Shanghai Restaurant and Cafe Astoria are still in business today,” she said. “A Shanghai-style public bathhouse, which very few residents of Taipei even knew existed, was closed down earlier this year.”
Yeh said she hopes the site will continue to tell people stories about the city as it does now. “People come here to talk about the past, such as where they went to work and where they dined out before,” she said. “They enjoy comparing the present and the past and identifying what has changed and what has not.”
She encouraged people to get better acquainted with the early history of daily life and its interesting correlation to the current city. “When you come to Futai Street Mansion, you will find trails of memories left behind from the Ching dynasty, Japanese rule, the early years of the Nationalist Government and even Shanghai in this place,” she said. (HZW)
Write to Audrey Wang at audrey@mail.gio.gov.tw