Between architecture and culture, we design.

Chunghwa Market, carrying 30 years of memories for Taipei residents
From Chifeng Street, once home to mechanics and ironworkers, to the trendy Chifeng Street today
The Taipei Performing Arts Center, the world's most anticipated building in 2022
Shen Ji New Village, once an abandoned civil servant dormitory, transformed into Taichung's most popular cultural and creative attraction
Alishan Dabang Elementary School, integrating Tsou traditional culture into its design from the perspective of children's daily lives

Five architectural sites,
Five cultural journeys,
Using design as a strategy of cultural resistance and a base for rebellion.

This book compiles the research and writings of architectural scholar Yin Pao-Ning in the fields of architecture, design, and culture in recent years. Seemingly independent pieces, they are collectively threaded by a deep concern for and questioning of culture.

Yin Pao-Ning uses geography as the warp and chronology as the weft, observing how design responds to users' imaginations and realities within the interwoven discourse of architecture and culture. The book begins with Chunghwa Market because this building carried Taiwan's dream of modernity in urban landscapes and architectural representation during the post-war modernization process. It then moves to the Chifeng Street neighborhood, located between MRT Zhongshan Station and Shuanglian Station, once a gathering place for mechanics and the oil and gas industry, and now, with a charming contrast, a cultural and creative cluster favored by hipsters.

Going a little further north, returning to the exploration of Jiantan and the former life of the Keelung River, how can a star architecture transform into a performing arts center? Leaving Taipei, Taichung's Shen Ji New Village, with its cluster of creative workers and the creative community they form, has driven regional revitalization, concretely demonstrating that design culture is not just a process but also possesses a highly proactive value. Continuing south to the Tropic of Cancer, what should the rebuilt century-old Dabang Elementary School look like? How can "design" serve as a medium for transmitting culture and historical weight? How should architectural production satisfy this social unit and convey cultural forms that embody the subjective consciousness of the Tsou people?

Through these inquiries, we fly through a hundred years of Taiwan's architectural composition in Yin Pao-Ning's words, seeing from a bird's-eye view, with solid material, how design appears in the role it plays between architecture and culture.