Taiwan Travel - Fujin Street: Taipei’s designer street

Fujin Street: Taipei’s designer street

Fujin Street: Taipei’s designer street

The density of design enterprises in the area Wang refers to is striking: On the 800m stretch of Fujin Street from Dunhua North Road to Sanming Road alone, not fewer than twenty-five first floor offices can be counted that fall under the category designer studios: interior designers, product and packaging designers, horticultural designers, architects. This new group of residents brought with it all the things that make the area look even more bohemian. Fancy lighting adorns the facades, pottery and ponds are nicely set up in the studio’s often park-like front yards. Vintage cars and motorbikes parked under the arches of treetops illustrate the success of the young design studio owners.

Display and packaging designer Boggy Chiu (邱柏舉) of Fujin Street’s VG Design (倡丘設計) lists the reasons why there are more designers here than in any other place in Taiwan: “First floor studios are much better to work in than anonymous office buildings. It’s quieter here, rents aren’t over the top, and this cluster of creative enterprises in Fujin Street definitely inspires us.”

Chiu is unaware of the historical fact that United Nations city planners were responsible for the Minsheng Community’s initial construction. He thinks that the area looks so foreign because many of its residents have a high educational level. Just like the designers, there are doctors, professors and artists living here who tend to travel to Europe more than other groups of society. He says: “Taiwanese people traditionally don’t care too much about how their facades look like, but the residents here obviously got a lot of inspiration from abroad.”

That the attempt to combine abundant vegetation and the city’s soul of bricks and concrete also causes headaches and sometimes conflicts, knows the horticulture expert and author on urban greening Chen Kuncan (陳坤燦).

He explains per e-mail: “The problem is that the selection of roadside trees in the area isn’t perfect. These Banyan and Bodhi trees are beautiful and all that, but their roots are so strong that they break through sidewalks, asphalt and water pipes.”

In his eyes, the city does the best it can to avoid property damage and accidents by cutting back the renegade roots and obstructing their growing. But many residents don’t share his opinion.

According to Chen they would rather like to see the old trees that make the Minsheng Community’s hallmark treetop arches “dug out and replanted elsewhere.”