Bedtime Architectural Stories

“ Just as some belles, when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffures of their exciting youth. But it is harder to understand why this form of arrested mental development should be passed on intact to succeeding generations of planners and designers”  - Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The Garden City and the Radiant City ideals are truly eighteenth century urban planning romanticism, with their rejections of urbanised society, excessive and unnecessary romanticism about the nobility and simplicity of ‘natural’ or primitive man. Everything should operate in a rational, regimented and harmonious way. This zone is for work, that zone is for live; it follows by inconsiderate insertion of civic space and large footprint of park and vertical towers that accommodate cars. Those grandeur urban renewal schemes replaces ‘slums’.  They make sense until we discover that they are at an expanse of city diversity of street vitality. They are good intent

  Long time ago there is a small country which has been infused with Confucius ethos and Westernized system. It is a curious mixture and it is fascinating how it opereate. As soon as you stepped onto this land, immediately you are connected to the vitality of the street life and the warm welcoming attitude from its citizens. Streets are congested, however paradoxically they are made up of low density dwellings, that's especially the case with cities outside of the capital city Taipei. You would find that they are primarily composed of  two or three level units and usually the first level is used as shop or parlor.  As Jane Jacob points out in her book 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities, if a city's streets look interesting, the city looks interesting, if they look dull, the city look dull. Usually big congested city leaves you an unpleasant impression, however, the cities in Taiwan offer you an aperture into the peaceful ordinary lives that fade into the backgroun