A personal experience

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Taiwan VS China

Deciding to go to Taiwan instead of ‘mainland china’ was an easy decision, because of my lack of speaking Chinese. In order to really understand a culture and to do any research at all, it was critical to me that I could do interviews with the people I met. From earlier travels in Beijing and Shanghai, I knew just how many difficulties one can get in China in spite of language barriers. Taiwan has a well developed economy and has been blossoming the last thirty years compared to Chinas ten years. This makes Taiwan an extremely convenient place to visit for a foreigner.

Taipei ‘yellow-cabs’ and a piece of paper with Chinese characters are what you need to find your way…

Looking for a Job in Taipei, Taiwan

Before one can apply for a job, one needs to know where the offices are located and this is not that obvious to a foreigner who does not speak Mandarin and therefore is also unable to search ‘Google’ for information. So with help from native friends with a bit of translation, it helped me getting an address of Taipei Architects Association. From here I got a few other addresses written in Chinese characters which were very helpful to me as I could show them to a cab driver. This led me to TNUT (Taipei National University of Technology) Department of Architecture and by coincidence I met a very friendly English-speaking professor who – to make a long story short – led me to the Taiwanese Architect J.M. Lin at “J.M. Lin Architect/ The Observer Design Group”.

If you want to know more about living and working in China/ Taiwan, look at the links on the left of the screen.

Architect/ Designer Judy Yang who welcomed me to the office at J.M. Lin architects and was so helpful during my stay in Taipei

The Job Interview

Unlike in Europe or the United States, I was welcomed immediately by the principal architect when I stepped inside the office and the whole atmosphere was incredibly friendly (I remembered once I had applied for a job at Daniel Libeskinds office in Berlin, German; the door only opened halfway and I heard the words: “try again next year”). I was showed around the whole office which holds about 60 employees (mainly interior designers and architects) divided on two floors. Another person offered me green tea and a third person gave me a Powerpoint-presentation on the projects of J.M. Lin. At the end Mr. Lin asked me to step inside his office for the interview. It happened that Mr. Lin knew Copenhagen quite well and we discussed issues like the new Opera and Louisiana Museum. Mr. Lin also worked as an architect in New York for 12 years and so he spoke fluently English which made things a lot easier. At the end of the interview he welcomed me to the office.

Mr. J.M. Lin Principal Architect giving a lecture in a university building he designed

Working at J.M. Lin Architect, Taiwan

Knowing that architect J.M. Lin won the internationally know AIA Awards (American Institute of Architects) in 2006 (http://www.jmlin.com.tw/), I was aware that this was probably not a typical Chinese office.So what was their philosophy of good architecture? To my surprise, in the library, I noticed the same books I knew so well from back home in Europe: “10 x 10”, “SMLXL”, “FARMAX” etc. To a very large degree their heroes of architecture were from northern Europe. I feel very much at home coming from Denmark.

Now, was this China? Or was it a reflection of Taiwan? My guess is that this can very well be China a few years down the road. The Taiwanese are very inspired by the American culture as well as the Japanese neighbour. Mainland China on the other hand is such a huge market alone that it is harder to influence from outside. Global products like Apple Macintosh or Dell or Coca Cola have rivals just as big as they are – we have just never heard of these brands in the rest of the world. On the other hand Taiwan as we know it today rose just some 40 years ago, when Chang Kai Shek fled from mainland China, because of political disagreements with Mao Zedong. A lot of people agreed with Chang Kai Shek and joined him in his mission on starting a new civilisation on the island of Taiwan. This means that most Taiwanese people have their roots in China.

During my stay in the office, I was involved in two large projects: Hua Shan Park, Taipei and National Marine Museum, Keelung. Not everybody spoke English, so sometimes collaboration was limited to a few people and all software was with Chinese characters – now that was a challenge! But because of the incredible hospitality of the Taiwanese, I never felt alone or out of communication. Mr. Linn even arranged tours for me and I was guided by project managers to see some of their award-winning buildings. In quiet times I had the change to do interviews with some of the architects working at J.M. Lin’s office.

Office of JM Linn Architect/ The Design Observer Group, Taipei, Taiwan

The Taiwanese people are hard-working people. It was more the rule than the exception that people left the office at 9 pm. Many of them were educated or had worked in the UK or the United States and they often talked about their easy life in London or the States compared to working in Taipei. However, they loved the lifestyle in Taipei they explained to me. They were so used to the convenient life in Taipei, where almost everything is 24 hours and you can get everything at any price everywhere. It is not just a matter of shopping, but it surely is a lifestyle – or should I call it a citystyle; first of all you do not have a downtown, but everywhere is downtown with a true variety of residences, shops, cinemas, theatres, restaurants, nightclubs and offices. Earlier we might have called this chaotic, but today it actually resembles the model of future cityplanning.

Architects/ designers at JM Linns Office are often at work till 9 pm

Not only are the Taiwanese hard-working, but the architects at J.M. Lin’s office are also very young and they have a lot of responsibility. I am not sure if this is the typical model of a Chinese office, but I can tell that this kind of horizontal organisation is getting ahead in Europe these days which is evidently the case at BIG, JDS or Henning Larsen Architects in Copenhagen, Denmark. Like in films, architecture has it’s heroes during different periods of time. In ancient times it was Greece, in post-modern times it was the United States and today it is northern Europe, but with that said offices like Herzog de Meuron and OMA/ Rem Koolhaas are doing some of their greatest projects ever in China. The economic growth allows it as well as an openminded-ness towards a new architecture which I experienced many times in Taiwan and China. With this great need of construction, we will sure be seeing a lot of new architects rising in China like one Beijing office that calls themselves MAD architects, who used to work for Zaha Hadid, London, UK. 

A very modern surprise in Taiwan

The following pictures represents some of what I did witness and did experience in Taiwan on guided architecture tours:

Taiwan Democratic Foundation Building 2006 by J.M. Lin Architects. The building was won the US Award AIA 2006.

Keelung Marine Science Museum, site model. JM Linn Architect 2006

A snapshot from a 3D animation of the Keelung Marine Science Museum

Inside the huge old structure of what is to be the Marine Science Museum of Keelung

Model of the Keelung National Marine Science Museum

The TABF (Taiwan Accountancy of Banking and Finance) building by J.M. Lin

TABF building. The Auditorium with the library overlooking it as seen in the mirrors.

A Taipei University building at night by J.M. Lin Architect. A very original facade with glassslabs intersecting oneanother

The Taipei University building facade from inside the corridors. Notice the creative lamps….they are made from big traditional chinese wok

Iconic signature of the ‘mens room’ printed on the floor in another Taipei University building by J.M. Lin

In the kithcen of architect J.M. Lins office one can find a specialdesigned sink with boiling hot water ready for a cup of tea or an espresso.

Ren Ai Lu (Road). A beautiful main street in Taipei where J.M. Lins office was situated among Danish design stores like ‘Bang & Olufson’ and ‘Georg Jensen’.

 

Dialogue Magazine on architecture + design + culture in Taiwan. A bilingual magazine in both English and Chinese. Recommended for visitors to Taiwan.

A bilingual ‘what-to-do-magazine’ from Taiwan. Much like ‘Time Out’ in London. Recommended for visitors to Taiwan.

BACK IN DENMARK – feel free to contact me any time. /David