The Bethlehem Mission Society (Societas Missionum Exterarum de Bethlehem in Helvetia, SMB), founded in Immensee, Switzerland, is a Catholic religious order that has been active in Taiwan for nearly 70 years. Dedic­ated to serving people in remote areas, the SMB has its Taiwan headquarters on Hangzhou Street in Taitung City. At its peak in the 1960s, this group of Swiss missionaries who operated deep in the mountains of Eastern Taiwan had 42 priests and five monks in Taiwan, but today only two remain.

These clergy live simple, disciplined lives, holding mass, praying, giving pastoral care to their parish­ioners, eating meals, exercising…. Every afternoon at three they invariably take tea in the dining room, where there are several Chinese-style round tables composed of fan-shaped segments. Around them are rattan-seated wooden chairs with simple forms, clean lines and precisely crafted joints. All are beautiful pieces that have stood the test of time.

All of this furniture was made by students at the St. Joseph Technical Senior High School (a.k.a. Kung-Tung Technical Senior High), which was founded by the SMB. It is said that in the Presidential Office Building there is a special room where foreign visitors can view many items of wooden furniture that are also creations of students at St. Joseph.

The missionaries of the Bethlehem Mission Society (SMB) gather every afternoon for tea. From left: Rev. Josef Eugster, Brother Augustin Büchel, and the late Rev. Gottfried Vonwyl.

St. Joseph School Chapel

Besides missionary work, the SMB has spared no effort to help the poor and the disadvantaged. Rev. Jakob Hilber, the first of the priests to arrive in Taiwan, introduced the Swiss-style apprenticeship system of technical education into Taiwan to assist children in remote areas, founding a craft skills training course for indigenous students that was the forerunner of the St. Joseph school. “St. Joseph has never been about training white-collar workers, but rather has aimed to cultivate skilled blue-collar workers,” says Huang Qingtai, who worked at the school for 27 years. Students from St. Joseph, which emphasizes the integration of theory and practice, have repeatedly won awards at skills competitions overseas, and the school has a special place in the history of vocational education in Taiwan.

At many schools the marquee building is the library. But on the campus of St. Joseph, with its deep religious background, the most representative structure is the Chapel Building. Rev. Hilber commissioned the famous Swiss architect Justus Dahinden to design this edifice, which has a simple and unadorned gray exterior. It features bare béton brut concrete walls, a “structural plate” design without beams or pillars, and irregularly spaced geometric openings in one wall. The crucifix on the roof is made of Taiwania wood, and was designed and erected by Huang Qingtai and the students back in the day. Seen from a distance, the building has the appearance of a proudly advancing modern Noah’s Ark.

The Chapel Building is by no means used simply as a place of worship, but also includes a workshop for hands-on learning and a student dormitory. This multifunctional structure echoes St. Joseph’s practical, workaday style. Next to the staircase on the third floor, an old door leads to the bedroom and office of Jakob Hilber, who in the past also served as a dorm house­master. Walking up to the fourth floor—the top floor of the edifice—behind a heavy beige door is the chapel itself, which has been called Taiwan’s version of the Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France.

Photographer Nicholas Fan, in his book The Chapel of Kung-Tung, describes the place as “a profoundly beautiful sacred space where body, mind, and soul can be as one.” Natural light filters down from the skylight in front of the altar, there is a steel sculpture of Christ symbolizing resurrection, and the mottled concrete walls have stained-glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross. There are also two rows of pews made by students. The interplay of light and shadow is beautiful and mysterious, and even non-believers can feel the uniquely tranquil atmosphere.

The special features of the St. Joseph Chapel Building echo the European architectural trends of the time. In 1955, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, a pioneer of modern­ist architecture, built Notre-Dame du Haut, setting an example for modern religious buildings, and it was not long afterward, in 1960, that the Chapel Building at St. Joseph was completed. You can see the influence of Le Corbusier in this work by the then-young Justus Dahinden, but it also incorporates novel ideas. The fact that through the work of the SMB this structure could take shape on the East Coast of faraway Taiwan can certainly be considered a miracle.

The Chapel Building at St. Joseph Technical Senior High School, designed by the Swiss architect Justus Dahinden, looks from a distance like an ark sailing on the water.

Huang Qingtai, a Presbyterian, was invited by Rev. Jakob Hilber of the Bethlehem Mission Society to become principal of St. Joseph Technical Senior High School, creating an opportunity for cooperation between the two Christian faith groups.

Brother Julius Felder designed the Church of St. Nicolaus. The geometrically shaped chancel and ceiling were motifs that he used often.

Brother Julius Felder, architect

Thinking back to those days when missionaries came all the way from Switzerland to the poor and backward East Coast of Taiwan, they were like pioneers. Besides missionary work, they also needed all the skills required to construct buildings. This was why Brother Julius Felder of the SMB, who was skilled in art, architecture, draftsmanship and design, came to Taiwan.

Although Felder passed away in Switzerland several years ago, many people still have vivid memories of his manner of conducting himself. They all describe him in the same way—as a lay brother whose Chinese was not very fluent but who had a marked artistic temperament and not only was enormously talented, but also had very high standards for his archi­tectural projects. A straightforward and honest man, he was none too willing to accept changes made to his designs by other people, and would even come into conflict with others to ensure the quality of a project.

Because Felder was not licensed as an architect in Taiwan, after completing the drawings for his designs he had to commission a Taiwanese architect to apply for a construction permit before work could begin. But thanks to his outstanding designs, astounding creativity, and word-of-mouth recommendations by parishioners, during his 41 years in Taiwan Felder was able to complete a large number of churches and houses, including more than 40 along the East Coast alone. Visiting these sites is like making a reli­gious pilgrimage.

From an academic perspective, archi­tectural scholar Roan Ching-yueh opines that Felder’s works have both “external” and “internal” orientations. The external is their connection to global architectural aesthetics, while the internal is the development of an independent local aesthetic. Geo­metrical pitched roofs that approach ground level, “structural plate” designs with tapered pillars and beams, and the choice of simple building mater­ials and colors are all clearly “external” elements that have been influenced by modernist thinking.

But Felder also carefully considered the local climate and site conditions, and used local granite and finishes such as washed terrazzo. Echoing thoughts expressed by Chung Yao Chang, who worked with Felder for many years and is now a construction engineer with the Archbishop’s Office of the Taipei Catholic Arch­diocese, Roan notes that over time Felder used less and less costly stained glass, instead employing the white and green marble that is so common in Eastern Taiwan for decor­ative effect. His ingenu­ity as an architect is especially mani­fested in these “internal” elements adopted in response to local conditions.

In his later years, with his health declining Felder returned to Switzerland to live out his life peacefully. Eventually he donated 2548 of his architectural design drawings to the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung. This vast, comprehensive collection of original drawings was meticulously arranged in chronological order. Liu Shih-lung, a research assistant at the NMP, says: “From that fact alone you can see how seriously Felder took his work.”

This cemetary on the eastern side of the Church of St. Nicolaus at Piyoxo (Xiaoma) symbolizes the SMB missionaries’ wish to be accepted as Taitung residents and assimilate into the community.

Julius Felder was amazingly creative and has left a legacy of more than 100 architectural works in Taiwan. (courtesy of Chung Yao Chang)

These original drawings by Julius Felder demonstrate his talent as an architectural draftsman and his enthusiasm for design. (courtesy of the National Museum of Prehistory)

courtesy of the National Museum of Prehistory

The Taitung Presbyterian Church in downtown Taitung City was designed by Julius Felder. The marble relief carvings around the exterior walls were executed by Gottfried Suter.

Designs for Presbyterian churches

As a member of the SMB, it was only natural that Felder would do design work for his own missionary society. But the Taitung Presbyterian Church and the Sinkang Presbyterian Church also were products of his creativity. A well-known story underlies this fact.

Although the Catholic SMB and the Protest­ant Presbyterian Church are both Christian organizations, in the past there was little interaction between believers in the two groups, and there was sometimes discord between them. Clergy on both sides invested a great deal of energy in trying to resolve this problem. Jakob Hilber got right to the crux of the matter and invited first Huang Qingtai and later Chien An-hsiang, both Presbyterians, to serve as principals of St. Joseph Technical Senior High School, which at the time was a deeply significant gesture.

Originally hired by St. Joseph to teach chemical engin­eer­ing, Huang traveled to Germany and Switzerland for advanced study to meet the school’s needs. Although these events took place more than half a century ago, Huang still describes them with perfect clarity. While studying in Switzerland, he saw a small church in the foothills of the Alps that was run jointly by Catholics and Protestants. They held their services at different times and co-existed peacefully. This discovery gave him great inspiration.

Later, when the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan decided to build a new church in Taitung City, Huang actively arranged for Julius Felder to design it, thereby launching cooperation between the PCT and SMB in church construction. “During construction of our new church, we borrowed the Catholic chapel at the Peizhi Hostel next door for our services, just like at that little church in the Alps,” says Huang with pride.

Entering the Presbyterian church on Taitung’s Guangdong Road, we see architectural details like the radiating form of the ceiling and the diamond-shaped chancel (altar space) that were commonly used by Felder. External to the structure, outside the French windows on two sides of the church that face the street there are relief carvings made from fragments of marble, so that this particular house of worship breaks with the tradition of Protestant churches rarely having decorative sculpture, and blends a certain Catholic flavor into the edifice.

Looking back into the past, we see how missionaries from the Bethlehem Mission Society at Immensee in faraway Switzerland came to the mountains of Eastern Taiwan. Desiring to bring their faith to other peoples, they followed the SMB’s guiding principle of adhering to “the spirit of the nativity of Christ”: In order to assimilate themselves into local culture, religion, and society, they were willing to abandon their own customs and habits. Now those days are long past, and only a few SMB members are left in Taiwan. But from the many buildings that remain today, we can still get an inkling of how, when they came to Eastern Taiwan back then, they devoted much thought and effort to integrating themselves into Taiwanese society while still holding fast to their beliefs. Hence these beauti­ful structures not only are reminders of the missionary zeal of these people from a far-off land, they also symbolize their important transition from “them” to “us.”

The Bethlehem Mission Society has been active in Eastern Taiwan for nearly 70 years. With their tireless efforts to assimilate into the local community, these Swiss missionaries have made great contributions in areas such as education and healthcare.

The exhibition space in the basement of the SMB headquarters in Taitung records the history of their pastoral work here.

Besides their work, SMB missionaries also have their own talents. The photo shows Christmas Eve, a collage created from leather offcuts and waste packaging by the artistically gifted Rev. Gottfried Suter.