Taiwanese construction industry mourns! Mr. Gao Erpan, the first generation of post-war architectural giants in Taiwan who contributed to Taiwan’s architecture for more than half a century, passed away peacefully in his apartment on the afternoon of the 14th at the age of 95. Gao Erpan has been engaged in design and teaching for many years, and is highly respected by academia and industry. He is currently the highest-ranking architect in Taiwan. From the 1960s to the 1990s, the North American Pavilion, the China Vision Building, and the Tamsui Golf Club Hall, these rich aesthetics, symbolizing the important signs that Taiwan’s modern architecture has entered a new era since the Second World War, are all out of high Pan Zhi’s Hand is an important testimony to Taiwan’s modern architectural practice.
In 2020, Professor Xu Mingsong, who curated “Foresight: The Pearl and Jade Exhibition of Gao Erpan Architecture” at the National Taiwan Museum for Gao Erpan Architecture, said today that he had gone to the mourning hall of Gao Erpan Architect in Taipei’s No. 1 Funeral Home in the afternoon. Gao Erpan’s family said that Gao Erpan had an upset stomach yesterday afternoon. He went to the toilet and went back to bed to rest, and died peacefully in his sleep. Xu Mingsong said that although Architect Gao Erpan is old, he has always been in good spirits. Last week, he and his friends visited Architect Gao Erpan. The Ministry of Culture and the architectural community were shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Gao and Pan.
Gao Erpan was born in 1928 into a prominent family in Dadaocheng, Taipei. He was in the era of transition between the pre-war and post-war, and the transition between the old and the new. He inherited the traditional Taiwanese character of generosity and humility, but he also had the courage to try to accept the avant-garde. Design thinking. Professor Xu Mingsong said that when looking back at the early works of Gao Erpan, he will find that he bravely challenged the social conventions and insisted on the expression of modernism in difficult situations.
After the end of World War II in 1945, architects in Taiwan were mainly trained from the “Taiwan Provincial Institute of Technology” (the predecessor of today’s National Cheng Kung University). , and widely absorbed the avant-garde architectural thought that integrated the East and the West at that time, laying a foundation for conceiving and designing buildings from a more diverse perspective. Gao Erpan passed the Civil Service Higher Examination for Construction Personnel and Industrial Technician. Since 1965, he has taught at the Department of Architecture of Tamkang University and Chinese Culture University. He established Gao Erpan Architects in 1966, and has served as the chairman of the Taipei City Architects Association and the National Architects Association of the Republic of China.
Gao Erpan once said in an interview before his death that he was deeply moved after visiting Wang Dahong’s house on Jianguo South Road when he was young. Its simple and oriental aesthetic design made him excited for three days without sleep; He was deeply inspired by his speech at the Department of Architecture on campus. He said, “Before Mr. Pei came to the stage, I valued the form of modernist architecture. After that, I finally understood that architecture must pay attention to the future changes of society. unimportant”.
In the process of Taiwan’s modernization, architect Gao Erpan received Taiwan’s local architectural higher education, and also widely absorbed the avant-garde architectural ideas of Japan and Europe. Countless architects today.
Gao Erpan believes that design thinking must start from the pulse of society, so as to provide the most appropriate design for contemporary society. The classic representative works of architect Gao Erpan, including residential buildings, schools, hospitals, parliament buildings, factories, stations, art galleries, banks and commercial buildings, etc., are all witnesses to the practice of modern architecture in Taiwan since the 1960s, and more faithfully recorded. Reflects the progress and achievements of contemporary Taiwanese society, economy and culture.
(Central News Agency)
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Hu Shi’s Cemetery, Taipei City Bank Building, Hua Shi Building, Xinshui Golf Club, and Yueli Villa are all representative works of Gao Erpan and are important witnesses of Taiwan’s modern architectural practice. The old building of Taipei City Council, located at Zhongshan South Road and Zhongxiao West intersection, is also the work of Gao Erpan in 1964. In order to promote BOT, the Taipei City Government dismantled it in 2016 on the grounds that it “has no preservation value”. People in literature, history, culture and architecture have even more direct criticism of Ke P’s team as “cultural killers”.
Gao Erpan won the Taipei City Government’s Good Design Award in 1980 and 1984, the 15th Architect Magazine International Cooperation Good Design Award in 1993 for the Dongshan River Water Park, and the 2nd Republic of China Award in 1996 by the Construction Department of the Ministry of the Interior. Outstanding Architect Award, and in 1999 was selected as the 1st Fellow of the Architectural Society of the Republic of China. According to the Ministry of Culture, the National Taiwan Museum has been promoting the “Digitalization Project for Collecting Illustrations of Classical Architectural Designs in Taiwan after the Second World War” since 2007. Architect Gao Erpan donated all of the more than 8,000 architectural illustrations from his career to the museum. The Taiwan Museum of Art will continue to carry out related research, exhibition and promotion work in the future.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum also posted on its official Facebook page today to pay tribute to architect Gao Erpan. The North American Pavilion pointed out that, as one of the classic masterpieces of high architects, this pavilion was completed and opened in 1983. The building is in the international modernist style with a low limit of gray and white. The overlapping bucket arches are the main structure. In addition to modeling the chain wash, it also makes pre-arrangements for the future expansion of the building. Architect Gao once said: “Architects complete 70% and leave 30% to artists.” Therefore, the North American Pavilion has become an expansive and sustainable art museum.
