|
Taichung City is located at the Taichung basin of midland in Taiwan. It is a representative inland city in the Taichung basin, where has no river with transportation functions and not face the sea. During the government of Ching Dynasty, there appeared gradually agricultural cultivation clusters and urban areas because the Hans people’ came into the Taichung basin. The provincial governor Liu Ming-Chuan established provincial capital in 1889, based on the consideration of military defence. But because provincial capital moved to the north, the transient migratory course of city construction did not bring great help for the development of Taichung basin. The construction of urban space in Taichung City began during Japanese Occupancy, which is the urban area with grid-shape programmed by the Japan Government in order to gain the domination. Thereafter one hundred years, the new urban areas with grid-shape taken shape in succession along with the railway and highway development, at the same time the space system expanded and converted uninterruptedly. The construction and expansion of urban space system in Taichung as the studying subject in this research, which by the analysis for the meanings of official bulletin plans to unscramble the course of space organization vicissitude for one hundred years.
Generally speaking, the discussion contents in this research includes four parts as followings:
1. Natural environment and early development
To narrate the environment conditions in the Taichung basin, and to describe force growth and decline of Ping-Pu Aboriginal and the Han nationality in the Taichung basin, the rise & decline of each clusters urban area, and to inquire into and study the ruins of Tungtatun Urban area. At last write up the rise, discarding and impactions when Liu, Ming-Chuan carried out Taiwan Provincial Planning at the end of Ching Dynasty. This part is used for understanding the activity status of Han people in the Taichung basin.
2. The development under Japanese colony government
To discuss the purposes of street improvement planning carried out by the Japanese Government, i.e. to figure out the new midland center. Based on these purposes, there were two planning blueprints, and developed twelve downtown planning (Street improvement, city planning); during the construction of space in Taichung, The technician Barton brought the programming concepts that affected the subsequent plans working out, and the space system upheld the Barton concepts being a urban area with grid-shape, and expanded gradually along with the converging of population and economic growth.
3. The urban space system during the colonial period
Taichung is a city programmed by the colonist, therefore the space structure of Taichung’s urban area completely controlled by the Japanese who underwent the Meiji Restoration Westernization Movement, and at that time the European used the colonial programming model used commonly for America into the Taichung’s urban area. Therefore it is worthy deeply analyzing the construction of space system at that time, and discussing the connotation of space being aimed at urban area network, main city equipments and urban area block dividing etc. three main axes. When analyze the main axes, the using and change of technician Barton concepts can be seen. Along with the architectural line being carried out, the grid-shape network with homogeneous quality grew into centralizing radiate urban area system, the equipment block from centralizing setting to be homogeneous distribution, and the urban area block from squareness to be rectangle shape gradually. And all the changes make the space quality in Taichung be richer.
4. The expansion of urban space system after the wars
The city planning construction almost broken down for ten years after the World War II, and at that times the city construction all continued to use the criterion, which constituted during Japanese Occupancy. Therefore the space system during Japanese Occupancy was the foundation of expansion at the Republic period; as the economy grows at high speed, the urban construction in Taichung was activated rapidly after 1975, and the space scope expanded gradually to clusters. While the expansion, the developing barycenter of city began to shift gradually under the subsidiary capital Situn being instead of nucleus status of railway station, based on the developed highway system. The complex and large-scale city constructed by Japanese and expanded after the two wars, which made step by step the ideality to be the biggest city in the central section come true, programmed by the Japanese at early days.
During the construction and expansion of space system, the experience provided in Taichung was quite exceptional. It was that nearly reconstructed a new urban area on an untapped territory. Also brought up that there were uninterrupted expansions nearly without any breakdown during the urban growth. Since the railway finished in 1908, railway station became the barycenter of space developing; the connotation of space were composed of uninterrupted centralizing traffic network and well-distributed public equipments. The space architecture not only existed during Japanese Occupancy, but also affected greatly for the urban development during Republic period.
During Republic period, the areas to the north of railway developed from the railway station to northwestern direction along with the Jhonggang Road, based on the perfect highway system, and to the south the developing pace was limited for the cutting by the Han River, where is more close to Taiping and Tali two municipalities under county. Generally speaking, during the construction and expansion of urban space, the city nucleus downtown area programmed during Japanese Occupancy, which no longer acted the function and role in former days except the uninterrupted expanding its territory, and its function was instead gradually by periphery downtown center, and the boom of nucleus area was converted into decline.
|