A Display of Wares from Yesteryear 淡江大小事

News and Events

A Display of Wares from Yesteryear

Date 2011-01-03 8233 Clicks

LEE, CHING-HAN

From May of last year, the TKU Department of Architecture has been working with the Taipei City Urban Redevelopment Office (TCURO) to set up a symbolic new display. The display is located at Dihua St., which is home to one of Taipei’s oldest markets, replete with baroque style buildings that date back to Japanese rule in the early 20th century. The display was designed to reflect the fusion of old and new embodied in the Dihua St. Market.

The TCURO and TKU’s Department of Architecture were allotted a “public shop”, an unused plot of space in the Dihua St. Market, in which to set up the display. The display consists of relics from a time gone by, which TKU students arduously collected, one by one, from local merchants and residents. They include an old-style Chinese lantern, a Ginseng medicine box, ceramic bowls, an oil-paper umbrella, and an antique–style window frame, among others, all of which have been delicately presented on a huge row of wooden racks.

Each of the antique items has a story behind it, which has been chronicled and exhibited for the benefit of visitors and future generations. The display has achieved its purpose. It has rendered into concrete form the collective memories of all of Taipei’s senior citizens. To such citizens, Dihua St. remains an undying vestige of Taipei’s City’s colorful past.

SDGs