Lighting Tainan After Dark:

Reading a Historic City Anew Through Light

Cathy Teng　/　photos by Kent Chuang

October 2026

中文

After dark, familiar temples have switched to a different way of being presented to visitors. Lighting brings out architectural details and reveals, one by one, the layers of history embedded in Tainan.

Every city has its own light, reflecting something of its character. Paris at night calls romance to mind; Tokyo’s lights suggest technology and the future; New York’s feel modern and exuberant. What about Tainan?

At night, via the effects of light and shadow, Tainan’s streets and old buildings take on a character different from the one they show by day. As the bustle fades, the city grows calmer, and the layers of its history come into clearer view.

A city that needs to be read slowly

By day, the old city is vivid in the sunlight. Cut-and-paste ceramic decorations gleam on temple roofs, competing for attention against the sky, while red temple walls and soaring swallowtail roof ridges stand out. Tainan’s days brim with energy, and the sun can feel like a constant recharge—though sometimes it sends you indoors for a generous bowl of shaved ice.

When the sun sets, the city gradually sheds its daytime bustle and its colors grow subdued. In softer light, streets, buildings, and old houses that people hurry past during the day invite a second look. Tainan takes on a calmer, warmer character at night, giving people the chance to get to know it anew.

Tainan’s history has never been confined to museums. Monuments, temples, old streets, and historic buildings are scattered throughout the city; turn a corner and you may come upon traces of another era. It is a city to be slowly savored. But when daylight fades, how can that history remain visible? The question helped prompt Tainan to think about light, and it launched the Tainan 400 City Light Environment Redesigning Project (hereafter “the Lighting Project”).

Speaking during “Light Being,” a series of activities running from August to late September of 2026 to introduce the fruits of the Lighting Project (which started in 2024 and still is ongoing), Chen Si-yu, director of the Tainan Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, says: “Tainan’s monuments and historic buildings are important embellishments of the city’s appearance. Through this lighting redesign, we hope people can keep discovering the existing culture here after dark by extending the hours in which it can be seen.”

The Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple takes on a different character after dark.

After dark, lighting outlines the roof ridge and brings out the beauty of its architectural details.

Lighting traces the corridors and pathways, guiding visitors into the temple and bringing depth to its spaces.

Lighting is not just adding more light

To be lit up is not necessarily to be seen. Nell Liao, design director at i/O Lighting Design, one of the firms working on the Lighting Project, says the aim is not simply to increase the amount of light in the city, but to draw people’s attention to the cultural layers present in Tainan.

Before deciding where to add light, the team’s first consideration was not how much light to add, but to establish an “order of light” suited to Tainan, allowing different spaces to show their own unique character at night.

In other words, light is not the star of the show. It is a medium that helps people read the city.

At the God of Wind Temple, less lighting made the century-old site feel more tranquil and encouraged visitors to come closer and linger longer. (courtesy of Coretronic Culture and Arts Foundation)

Bringing light into the city

Tainan has in fact been considering its urban lighting for some time.

In 2013, the Tainan City Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau began with a project at the God of Wind Temple, experimenting with less light to rethink how a historic site could look at night. The reduced lighting made the century-old temple feel more tranquil and encouraged people to come closer and linger longer.

From 2019, the Tainan Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage expanded its focus from a single building to a historic neighborhood, linking sites in the area from the National Museum of Taiwan Literature and the Yeh-Shyr-Tau Literary Memorial Museum to the former Tainan Shinto Shrine Office and Garden and the Tainan Confucius Temple.

In 2024, the Lighting Project advanced the city forward another step, extending the rethinking of lighting to cultural sites across the city. Its 11 designated sites include the former Tainan Prefecture Council building, former Tainan He Tong Building (Tainan City Fire Museum), former Tainan Japanese Patriotic Women’s Association Hall, Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple, Grand Mazu Temple (Prince Ning Jing’s Mansion), Kaiji Martial Temple, Guang’an Temple, Kaiji Ling You Temple, Tainan Confucius Temple, the Xingji Temple–Da Guanyin Pavilion complex, and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.

From a single historic site to a historic district and then to cultural sites spread across the city, Tainan’s thinking about light has gradually shifted from how to illuminate one building to how lighting can help people read an entire city.

Being illuminated is not the same as being seen. Nell Liao explains how an “order of light,” with variations in brightness and depth, can draw attention to the architectural details that matter.

Giving people a reason to stay

Meanwhile, the Light Being team led a series of walks, taking participants along main streets and through alleys to experience the city’s lighting on foot, and invited performing groups into the streets as well. At the former Tainan Japanese Patriotic Women’s Association Hall, performers’ silhouettes danced with the light and shadow among the second-floor wooden window frames. Contemporary circus performances took place in front of the Hall of Three Generations at the Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple and beneath the arcade of the former Tainan He Tong Building, becoming part of the city’s nighttime scene.

Amidst the darkness, light, shadow, and music created an unhurried, soothing atmosphere. Residents and visitors who had only meant to pass through found themselves stopping to take in the city at night.

Light illuminates more than buildings, it also falls on the people and everyday life of the city. When the street becomes a stage, people naturally are willing to walk a little farther and stay a little longer.

At that point, light was no longer just a means of illuminating buildings. The buildings became stages, while light guided people as they walked, looked, and lingered; residents were the protagonists of life in these spaces. Chen explains that lighting must return to two basic questions: “What kind of light does this place need?” and “What kind of light will make this space more comfortable for people to use?”

Good lighting may not catch the eye at once, but it may make people—without even thinking about it—walk a little farther or stay a little longer. When the light feels comfortable, people are willing to come in and slow down. A place they might otherwise pass through becomes somewhere to pause.

Chen sums up the Tainan 400 Lighting Project with this remark: “I think Tainan is better placed than anywhere else in Taiwan to do this.”