The Route of NCKU Students - The Cultural Assets Area
Route Introduction
The Old Main Library
|Architecture of Modernism|
The old main library on Sheng-Li campus completed in 1959 and is the most representative building during the US aid period. The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 rendered Taiwan, which is located on the first island chain, to receive care and assistance from the United States, including education assistance. Therefore, from 1953 to 1960, NCKU collaborated with Purdue University of the United States with outstanding engineering performance.
The old main library, jointly planned and designed by NCKU faculty & students and consultants from Purdue University, is a typical modernistic building. Its architectural form features functions, such as the reading room on the front and both the southern and northern sides. High-lifted ceilings and large windows guaranteed better ventilation and lighting in the reading rooms. The back of the library faces east and west, used to store the books, with vertical shades on the facades to obtain a relatively dry space without direct sunlight. The ceiling's height was reduced to only half of the reading rooms for the books space.