踏溯台南

踏溯台南

文學院 通識教育課程

Lâu-noā Sió-sai-kha

Route Introduction

 

 Tainan District Court (Tainan Judicial Museum)

 

   The Japanese architect Moriyama Matsunosuke designed the building. During the Taisho period, many Japanese architects came to Taiwan to learn "Western historical patterns" to apply to public buildings' designs. They created many masterpieces that even local Japanese architects can hardly match; Tainan District Court is an example. In the past, museum guides often mistakenly considered it as Baroque architecture. However, there is no Baroque or Renaissance architecture in Taiwan. It can be said that it is a historicist architecture formed by diverting from the architectural vocabulary of Baroque, Renaissance, and other elements: integrating with previous architectural styles to create a historical style in the corresponding periods. Taiwanese scholar Fu Chao-Ching claims that Japan extensively recruited technicians from various European countries or overseas students to multiple places for study and training during the Meiji Restoration. It divides into classical and non-classical categories. The former mainly refers to the classical style of the Greco-Roman period and its derivatives. There are two sources: first, Brick buildings in England during the Victorian period; second, classical continental European architecture. The latter follows the standard practice of Western classical architecture. It can show its authority characteristics through heavy stone and orthodox Western classical vocabulary used in official buildings. Taiwan's classical continental European architecture during the Japanese rule period was a second-hand transplant. Because Taiwan does not produce classical conventional stones, it uses wash stones and other imitation stones instead, which can be seen from the Tainan District Court.