Beimen (North Gate) Area, Taipei (北門, 台北)

north gate taipei — North Gate before the Zhongxiao Elevated Highway was demolished

(Latest updates: Apr 2023) This part of the city has a fairly long history, at least by Taipei standards, and there are a lot of interesting sites in a small area. It's also been changing a lot in recent years and will continue to do so. The original text here was written in 2016. As of April 2023 most places have been renovated and the new museums are open. I'm going to go through each of the existing sites chronologically from the Qing Dynasty to the modern era. They are all located within a few minutes walk of each other and everything can be accessed easily from Beimen MRT Station.

North Gate (北門) and the Old Walled City.

In the very early days Taipei was not a single unified city but a number of small settlements. These were mostly separated along Han Chinese clan lines or were indigenous villages. When immigration rates from China increased in the 18th and 19th centuries most migrants settled with people who had moved from the same province or city. A lot of people from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou settled in Wanhua. After a conflict between different groups of migrants in 1853 some moved to Dadaocheng (taking the City God with them). People from these two settlements continued to be hostile towards each other and there were frequent small battles.

The walled city was built as a neutral area between these two enclaves by the Qing regime. It surrounded government buildings and the city's main Matzu temple (at this time located in the present day 228 Memorial Park). The walls could also help defend against marauders and bandits which were still a problem back then. The walls and gates were completed in 1884. There were five gates: North, East, South, Little South, and West. Little South Gate (小南門) was apparently built for the wealthy Lin clan of Fuzhong so they didn't have to mingle with undesirables and enemies at the other gates. They also funded the construction of south wall. Archaeological remains of the city walls, the city arsenal, and a coin mint from the 19th century can be seen on the first level of Beimen MRT station.

The Japanese demolished the city walls as they were restricting development and they wanted to build the railway in its location. Of the five gates, four remain. West gate (西門) was demolished along with the walls. North Gate is the only gate to retain its original architectural style. In the 1960s the other gates were remodeled in a Chinese palace style by Chaing Kai Shek, as part of his sinicization drive. North Gate was left unaltered after scholars petitioned to have it preserved in its original style.

From the Qing era to the present day the gate itself has changed little but the area around it has completely transformed.

Now that the Zhongxiao Bridge Road has been demolished the gate is free. The area feels much more spacious and people friendly. There are usually visitors around the area now where previously it was often deserted. I'm glad to see people connect with this piece of Taipei’s history.

Futai Street Mansion

The Futai Street mansion is a small European style building on Yanping South Road. It was built in 1910 as the headquarters of a Japanese-owned construction company. It has a quite distinct Mansard roof and wouldn't look out of place in Paris. There is a bookshop focusing on history on the ground floor and usually a small exhibition on the second floor. The exposed roof beams are quite complex. Some of the other buildings in the vicinity date from the Japanese era but are much more ordinary.

Mitsui Warehouse

From 2016: This is an early 20th century building used by the Mitsui Company and then the railways. It's the only remaining interesting building on its block. The structure is in a fairly perilous condition and has no roof. It is listed as a city heritage site so it will be saved. I've read in a couple of places the city government plans to move it to aid traffic flow. It's almost the sole representative of this type of old warehouse building in the city center, and it rounds out the Historic North Gate circle nicely. I would support moving it a little to the north, in a similar way to how one of the TRA HQ workshops was moved, but moving it too far would separate it too much from the gate. (As of 2023 the warehouse was moved and fully restored. It now operates as a café and events space with a VR guide on the area’s history. There was some controversy about it being moved but I doubt such an expensive decision was taken lightly)

The First Taipei Railway Workshop and TRA HQ

After the demolition of the walls the railways expanded down the present day Zhonghua Road towards Wanhua and Banqiao. The North Gate Workshop is a collection of buildings dating from the early Japanese era that were designed to service and repair the trains. The Railway Administration built their headquarters here in 1911 here in an unusual mock Tudor style. This particular structure has recently been restored after being disused since 1990. As of 2023 it houses the railway history branch of the National Taiwan Museum. I visited the museum in 2023, and even if you’re not particularly interested in railways it’s an excellent museum. I was worried much of the interior would be stripped away and made to look brand new but it’s actually a very sensitive and beautifully done restoration where the building has been allowed to show its age.

The displays inside cover the entirety of Taiwan’s rail history in huge detail with good English signage. Everything is covered, even little curios like war reserve bridges and firing range shelter tunnels.

I generally don’t like to post many photos of exhibits themselves as it feels a little redundant. However there’s a large and incredibly detailed working model of Taipei Station in the 1970’s and 80’s on the second floor that I will share a little of here. I think I used a lot of the same reference pictures as the people who built this when I drew the area as it was in the 1940s and I’m impressed how accurate this is! The model is switched on every 30 minutes. Few people realize that Taipei had a roundhouse like the one in Changhua (it was located on the Zhongshan Road end of the station) and it’s cool to see it re-created in 3D here.

The other buildings on the site consist of a few smaller wooden workshops and one large brick workshop. While Beimen MRT Station was under construction the big workshop was slid backwards on rails in a very complex looking operation. As such, for most of the past few years it has been hidden under a green shed.

The TRA Worker's Village

On the block next to Beimen MRT there's a group of quiet alleys and large trees. Among these are a lot of Japanese era wooden houses in various states of repair. This was, and in 2016 still was, a small housing area for railway employees. Almost all of the buildings are abandoned but a few were still inhabited in 2016. In the center of the group there is a larger brick building that looks as though it was either a warehouse or tenement housing.

As of 2023 these buildings have protective roofs over them.

As of 2023 the whole village is sealed off. The large clinic to the north and many smaller houses have been demolished. Some houses and the warehouse will be preserved. The plans I’ve seen seem to show a large office and department store combination. Not a particularly imaginative use for the site (doesn’t the area already have a billion shopping outlets?), but at least a few parts will be saved.

This row was freshly demolished in 2016. The building behind is part of an old clinic. In 2018 some more of the site was lost to arson

Back in 2016 I decided to wander around the clinic in the north of the site. Looking at old satellite photos a small portion of this building dates to before 1945, but the interior is totally modern. The interior was largely stripped and didn't have anything that interesting inside (except some incongruous flowers on a bookcase). There were some graffiti murals being painted on the 3rd floor that looked quite vivid. To the artists' credit there is very little graffiti on abandoned historical sites in Taiwan, even in the centers of the cities. Most artists seem to concentrate on more mundane modern ruins like this one. Other than the murals I was intrigued to find a shrine outside. It looked like it had been cut away to be moved. As far as I know demolishing a god is believed to bring bad luck.

The future of this village is the most uncertain in the area. On some plans it looks as though it will be almost totally destroyed. It typifies the city government’s lopsided approach to history that no expense has been spared on some of the historic buildings in the area, yet equally historic structures from the same era are cast away. The city is particularly bad with domestic and vernacular architecture, which needs to be kept for coherence. If the area becomes a few glossy restorations scattered in an expanse of glass and concrete it will lose a lot of its character and appeal. In 2016 this was one of the most complete remaining areas of Japanese style wooden homes in the central city. In the video below it seems about half the village will be kept, but in the image underneath it seems it will mostly be destroyed. From the look of things too much has already been lost.

Beimen Post Office

This large building from 1930 is the second post office on the site. The first was a flimsy looking wooden one that had termites. Originally there were only three floors and it had a large covered entrance. But this has gone and another floor has been added (as of 2023 the covered entrance is now rebuilt!). When I arrived in Taipei in 2010 this place was decaying and tiles were falling off. There were long veins of concrete filling in cracks on the façade and for some years it was covered up.

Inside it looks as though there will be a small museum but it will still be Taipei's main post office. It faces the TRA HQ and the Mitsui Warehouse across the North Gate circle. Together they show the progression of Japanese colonial architecture from the cozy domestic styles of the earlier brick buildings to the imposing neo-classical or art-deco designs of later buildings. I've seen plans as of Sept 2016 to build a large skyscraper directly behind the office. Both the design and size of the tower are totally inappropriate for a historic site. As of 2023 this tower has yet to be started and I believe the plans were scrapped.

Haggler's Row (Zhonghua Market)

Looking towards North Gate from above Zhongshan Hall. Source

Although this site no longer exists I think it's interesting enough for a quick mention. These long white buildings in the middle of Zhonghua Road were built in the 1960s. They were meant as a gleaming showpiece of modern Taipei. They stretched the entire length of the old west city wall alongside the railway. At first they were a busy and popular place to shop and they became homes for many people. The blocks located closest to the Hengyang and Zhonghua intersection (present day Ximen MRT Station) were often very busy. But the ones towards Beimen and Xiaonanmen received less custom as the years passed by. As such only very low profit enterprises set up there, such as VHS sellers and other cheap electronic goods shops (I have a feeling many of these more recently moved into Xining Market). The huge neon billboards that sat on their roofs were pretty cool though.

By the '80s decay had set in and the fabric of the buildings was crumbling, especially in the extreme northern and southern blocks. I wonder if the constant close passing of trains damaged them but I'm just speculating there. The project to move the railway underground gave the government a useful opportunity to demolish them, despite strong opposition from those living there. There's absolutely no trace of either the railway or these buildings on Zhonghua Rd now; only tarmac and green median lines. I was perhaps a little harsh earlier when I said they were a complete failure. That was based both on their short existence and how quickly they became decrepit. Also a Chinese language source that said the blocks at the extremities were quite unsuccessful commercially. Thanks to Yuzhi in the comment below for providing some great information. More recently a TV series called The Magician on the Skywalk was set here.

Zhongxiao Expressway

You can clearly see the original extent of the railway worker's village on the right. This image shows the highway partly under construction (Zhongxiao Bridge is not finished) alongside the beginnings of Xining Public Housing. Source: Again like the TRA image above I'm not sure where I got this from. But probably from here.

The Zhongxiao Expressway, or Zhongxiao Bridge on-ramp, was one of those pieces of transport planning typical of the '50s - '70s that put the importance of road transport above everything else. It was built in the early '70s and little concern was shown for the close to 100 year old city gate adjacent to it. One of the off-ramps practically touched North Gate. In some plans I've seen from that era the gate was originally going to be demolished so this was not the worst possible outcome. The multiple ramps you can see in the picture above were knocked down earlier leaving just the main section until 2016. The road had long been hated by Taipei residents (at least by those who didn't use it to commute) and its demolition took place over Lunar New Year 2016. Originally this was scheduled to take between 1-3 months but it was condensed into a week in a huge operation. Personally I'm glad it's gone. It made that environment harsh and it was unpleasant to walk under. Maybe commuters from New Taipei will be angered by it's demolition but frankly I'm sure they'll adapt. One of the most common misconceptions about transport planning is that more roads lead to less congestion (check out the concept of induced demand/induced traffic). At some point, yes it does, if you make every road an eight lane highway. But in real cities often building more roads just creates more drivers. Getting a little off topic but this is why I find those calling for extra highways between Taipei and Tamsui so frustrating as really an express line MRT addition should be built.

Xining Public Housing

Sometimes a place will capture my attention for no particular reason at all. Xining Public Housing is one such place which always drew my gaze. I think probably for it's blunt and brutal design, and how it reminded me a little of British public housing from the same era. I later found out it is consistently voted as one of Taiwan's most haunted places so it seems I'm not the only one who finds it a little intimidating. It seems this reputation was based entirely on outside appearances. Inside there is a market selling retro audio equipment that was quite interesting to look around.

Xining before the bridge road was demolished.

All the sites covered here can be found on the Hidden Taiwan Map here. I realize the area is continually changing so will try to keep this updated. If you’d like to see the full map of old Taipei I drew, which features North gate, I made a page for it here and it’s also available to buy if you’d like to support some future work like this. The adventures that make up these entries are often posted as Instagram stories at tomrookart first. So give that a follow too if you like as it can sometimes be a year or more before stuff turns up here! For a blog covering a lot of nearby sites around Main Station have a look here.