Huashan Arts District Opens, Inaugurating Policy of Repurposing Idle Spaces

Source: Development of Cultural-Arts Spaces and Urban Regeneration: Observations on Space Reuse in Taipei City
From: Museum Studies Quarterly, Issue 19, Special Feature on Museums, Local Character, and Urban Regeneration
Date: October 2005. Author: Ch’en Hua-chih

From the advocacy efforts that secured the Huashan Arts and Cultural Zone in 1997, to the intensive promotion of the “Idle Space Reuse” policy after the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs was established in 1999, through the Council for Cultural Affairs’ “New Taiwan Arts and Culture Stars Programme” and the commissioned PennPraxis (University of Pennsylvania) “Huashan Creative Park Urban Plan” alternative proposal — Huashan was conceived under the idea of a central arts and cultural park for the city, linking the railway station, the museum cluster around the old city, and surrounding arts and cultural spaces, with the ambition of serving as a central platform for artistic creation and nurturing.

As cultural art became a concrete marker of urban competitiveness, the investment of public-sector resources inevitably drove the next phase of development for arts and cultural spaces — and arts-space development began to engage with issues of urban structure and renewal.

Huashan Cultural Park Arts Street (Source: Wikipedia)

Tags

External Links

• Don’t Waste History, Don’t Squander the Future — What Should Huashan 1914 Be Doing Now? (Huang Ching-hsüan)
• My Jianghu Ties with Golden Bough Theatre! (Ch’en Wen-pin)
• Review of the Idle Space Reuse Policy (National Policy Foundation Research Report)
• Research on Idle Space Reuse — A Case Analysis of Huashan 1914 Creative Industries Park (Huang Ying-chia)