East Asia & Pacific » Taiwan
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Taichung, a shackle in the Taiwanese west coast |
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| Taiwan has a linear west coast urban structure. Taichung, one of the 3 most important cities of the island, replicates the rectangular rice-field pattern from the inherited agricultural past into the new metropolitan structure. | |
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Hsinshu: from growing rice to growing knowledge |
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| High-speed rail has transformed the spatial and economic structure of Taiwan. West coast cities along the rail line are specializing: governance, education, research, production, and export — all integrated parts of the same national effort to prove that Taiwan is one of the leading societies of the world, and especially of East Asia.
This avant-garde urge requires a constant competitiveness effort and the need to sustain this effort with the adequate urban and spatial structure. City development is an essential part of Taiwan’s development. Hsinchu is part of this policy, this need and this national will. To make it competitive, it has to adapt to the new needs — the future needs — of Taiwanese economic development in the most advance sectors of science and research at the service of highly sophisticated technological production. |
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Hsinchu Genius loci of the New Centrality |
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| The engineering requirements have located the high-speed stations away from the strategic locations closer to the city centers. There is a need to adapt the urban structures to this new high-level intermodal node.
These will become the future high rank centralities of the metropolitan structures as the ‘gates’ (see traditional Chinese culture of City Gates), city symbols and marketplaces that relate each city to rest of the metropolitan systems of the country. The design of these essential elements should take from the deep-rooted high-quality understanding of the Chinese culture of urban spaces and should avoid the modern western tendency to make of these places a cemetery for totemic skyscrapers. |
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Hsinchu INTA presentation |
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| Complementary information | |
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