Historic Tainan
After drawing Taipei in the 1930’s I had the idea to make a twin drawing of Tainan. As the capital for much of the 16th-19th centuries Tainan has a incredible density of historic places and a ton of character. Sometimes these drawings act as a way for me to get to know a place I’m curious about on a deeper level. What better way to do that than be forced to dive down each lane and alley and check out every museum and archive?
When I decided to re-create Taipei and then Tainan in the 1930’s I was driven by a few things. Firstly I’d started seeing photos of the city from that era and I was blown away by one, how very different it looked, and two, by how weirdly European it looked. Coming from a town that had barely changed since the Victorian era I was stunned by how quickly Taiwanese cities changed. I also wanted to learn a bit more about the Japanese era and how it shaped the modern cities. For a pair of cities that were ethnically quite homogenous there was a pretty wild variety of architecture during that time, from baroque, to traditional Japanese, to streamlined deco, and I became mildly obsessed with finding buildings where a bunch of these styles had melded together (like in the current Shi Tao-Ye Memorial Hall with it’s western arches and brickwork and traditional Japanese roof). Although I set the drawing roughly in the 1930’s for an exact date I usually go with just before the bombing raids in 1945. I see this as the boundary between the old and modern city, a point at which it went through great change, and the end of one era and beginning of the next. I did not intend to glorify the Japanese era city, it’s simply the furthest back good archival materials go and when a lot of currently recognizable landmarks had been built. I’ve been happy to have been contacted by families who’ve lived in Tainan for generations and whose older members recognize many of the sites on the drawing!
A few notes on making this: This was probably the most challenging large drawing I’ve made. I’d compare the process to doing a puzzle, in 3D, while also creating the puzzle at the same time from fragmented sources. Compared to central Taipei, Tainan was seriously lacking in archival imagery. A lot of old buildings are hidden down narrow lanes and are hard to photograph. For some streets I just had the roofs from aerial photos to work from, and these were often blurry. A lot of old pictures had the Japanese names of streets written on them and trying to figure out the contemporary location was difficult. With some pictures it was hard to tell whether a distant object was a tree or a building in shadow! Finally, some existing buildings are built in a 1920’s style (notably the Quan-Mei Theater with its famous hand-painted signs that I’ve added to the right) but were actually built in the 1950’s.
About a third of the way through the drawing I had to abandon it as couldn’t find enough archival material. I wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Fortunately a determined push and some discoveries in museums and archives allowed me to complete it!
Despite all the difficulties at times making this felt like uncovering buried treasure. It was exciting being the first person to see the city in this way and watch it grow on the paper. There were already some well known historic sites in the city but my favorites were often the forgotten ones that had not yet been restored. My hope was that this drawing would bring some attention to them so future generations could enjoy them and that in part inspired the two part blog post that I’ve linked to lower on this page.
Artwork Details
Historic Tainan , 2018 , Pencil on drawing paper , 146 x 109 cm
Original Drawing : Available here
A limited edition print series is available. Total of 60 prints split between two sizes
The Etsy shop is a little pricier given the much higher taxes and fees on that platform
International airmail usually takes 2-3 weeks. Expedited mail is available on request.
For a little more reading on the historic parts of Tainan check out the two blog posts linked below and a few other areas I researched!
Tainan Prison is one of the strangest attempts at heritage protection I've seen here. Originally built in the Japanese era it was located near the center of the city. I drew it as part of Old Tainan. The headhouse and part of the cell block were saved when the site was demolished in the early 1980s. Bizarrely it was moved to the new Tainan Prison 13 kilometers away, rebuilt there, and then just left to rot. You can just about see it on Google Streetview slowly collapsing. I don't think it's possible to get close as it's part of the prison. Apparently it failed to get protected status and then was left. What will happen in the future?
There used to be a lot of houses around the Chikan Towers. In the 1940's they were demolished to protect the towers from possible fires caused by bombs.
Superstition in the cityscape: The first building was built before 1945. The person who built it became a successful businessman. He built another almost identical one (pic 2). Other people who wanted success built their shophouses in the same style. They believed it was a lucky design. Tainan has at least six of these slightly art-deco copies that date right up until the late 1950's. Many thanks to Tim at The Vintage Maison for that information.
The text below is from a little Q&A I had on my FB page and later had translated:
Why this era?
I feel like most people like Tainan for its food and its history. I know little about its food but I do know a lot about its history, so I decided to focus on that. I felt it would also be cool to see how much the city had changed over the past decades. It seemed to me that the most interesting period would be the early 1940's. A lot of the special Tainan places like the Hayashi Department Store were built by then, and it was before a lot was wiped out in WW2. There was also still a lot of the Qing era city around at this time too. Importantly, this era is the furthest back you can go with good enough visual archives. Pre-1920 there is very little material. It's not meant to glorify the Japanese era or anything like that, to me it's simply one of the most interesting points in the history of the city.
How long did this take?
Absolutely ages, and it was abandoned once from lack of archival material! It was so exciting to see it grow on the paper that I pushed myself to finish it!
How accurate is it?
I'm sure out of the 2000+ buildings I put on this map there are some errors. Old photos were hard to come by and for some areas I could just see roofs, or the year was off a bit. I wanted this to have archival and historical value so I tried to be careful. I'm happy with the level of accuracy I got. I am after all only human.
Favorite building?
Tainan has a lot of cool buildings. The huge martial arts hall near the Confucius Temple is a favorite! Also the old theater that was opposite West gate Market and the Wu Garden Complex were/are beautiful too. What's yours?
Where are the people?
Hiding from the planes! This is the 1940's after all, it was a dangerous time to be outside! More seriously though I wanted to keep this to scale and at this scale people would be little more than dots. I felt it wouldn't work so well. If I did it again now I'd likely put a bit of traffic on it.
Will you make a modern version?
While I think it would make a really cool comparison I don't have plans for that. I think any modern drawings of Tainan I make would be a little more neighborhood based. This way I could get people on at a reasonable scale and level of detail, a little like the drawing I'm making of my home district at the moment. I think if I made a large modern one people would still be drawn to the same landmarks I put on this one. Possibly something really detailed of Anping, or maybe the Shennong Street/West Gate area would be cool