Turn to commercialization?
In the absence of substantive policy support from any government agencies, many Japanese-era structures depend for their survival on the creativity and enthusiasm of private citizens.
This can be seen very clearly in the case of the roughly 150 Japanese-era houses owned by National Taiwan University. The university was put in a quandary when Taipei City designated some of them as historic sites, making it illegal to remove them and saddling NTU with responsibility for heavy maintenance bills they couldn’t hope to meet. In 2009 NTU’s General Affairs Office came up with a “build, operate, transfer” (BOT) mechanism for these buildings, under which the school has opened up their management and use to the private sector, with the occupants for any given structure to be decided by experts through a process of online bidding and proposals. The winning business establishes its premises in the old structure for a contracted period, and agrees to handle and fund all building renovation and maintenance. Lease periods for buildings that are currently in good shape are shorter (as little as two years), while those for structures in poor condition run for correspondingly longer periods (up to nine years). Qingtian 76 is one of the structures that today operates under this program.
General affairs director Zhang Fushu admits that NTU’s motivation in recruiting the private sector to adopt old structures is financial—his budget does not reach to the exorbitant renovation and maintenance costs—but he notes that the school has no comprehensive policy in place to repurpose the buildings.
The first example of a successful BOT project for an NTU-owned Japanese-era building to be renovated and opened to the public lies in a high-rent neighborhood right across the street from the Xinsheng South Road gate to the campus.
Businessman David Pao made the choice in middle age to give up his career and open a coffee shop. When he made his proposal to NTU to take over the old structure, he had just closed up his old shop. He has a fondness for old buildings because “you can sense they have been through good times and bad, and they bear the marks and scars of time.” His proposal—selected over those of 17 competitors, including a sporting goods store, a hot-pot restaurant, and a well-known hamburger chain—included a very detailed plan of the changes he would make to the space.
Today, the shop, though only about 100 square meters in size, lacking any outside sign, and having only a few seats for customers, has become an eye-catching landmark outside the school gate. When Pao renovated the house, he kept only the pillars and beams, and the Japanese-style tiled roof. The interior walls were removed and the exterior wall facing the street was entirely replaced with clear glass. Interior mirrors create the illusion of a much larger space. The shop is especially attractive at night, when warm lighting bathes passing pedestrians and motorists in an atmosphere of warmth and comfort.
Though commercial, the structure retains an air of learning and cultivation. Pao says that besides NTU students and faculty, he also gets a lot of people who make their living in the arts and culture. He mentions with a laugh, “We only serve coffee, but that doesn’t seem to bother them. They hang around all day without ever apparently needing to eat!”
The refurbishing of old houses puts a fresh new face on the city. David Pao (right), the owner of Drop Coffee House, located in a renovated Japanese-era structure on Xinsheng South Road, loves to observe the crowds strolling by outside. Looking into the shop also feels very much like watching live theater.