Kaohsiung’s cultural-creative industries hub is its old waterfront
where, thanks to the relocation of the harbor’s cargo-handling
facilities, a great deal of land has been freed up. A warehouse
here once used solely to store bananas (another of yesteryear’s
major exports) is now known as Banana Wharf; the shops inside
are often the first place visited by disembarking cruise-ship
passengers.
Another set of warehouses has been refashioned into Pier-2
Art Center (
pier-2.khcc.gov.tw
). It’s a venue for performances
and exhibitions, but real work also gets done. Among the digital-
content outfits that have established a physical presence near
Pier-2 are companies from the US and Japan.
In addition to alluring edifices that have gained a new reason for
being, there are also old buildings which, after an interval of
decades, have had both their appearance and original function
restored. One is the 91-year-old Xinhua Butokuden in Greater
Tainan, on which almost US$700,000 was lavished between 2011
and 2013. In the daytime, visitors take photographs of this
graceful and quintessentially Japanese structure. During the
evening, the springed floor shakes as young people practice
kendo and judo, just as it did in their grandparents’ childhood.
Ta i w a n ’ s O l d
B u i l d i n g s G e t
a N e w L e a s e
o n L i f e
> A SAFE HARBOR FOR ARTS
4
> A DOJO REBORN
5
3
Pier-2 Art
Center
Xinhua
Butokuden
Miyahara
Ophthal
mology
45
enVoyage
