Letters to the Mayor: Taipei

January 8th – January 31st, 2016

JUT Foundation for the Arts and Architecture

 

#letterstothemayor     #letterstothemayortaipei     @storefrontnyc

 

In collaboration with the JUT Foundation for the Arts and Architecture, Storefront presents Letters to the Mayor: Taipei as part of the global Letters to the Mayor project. Each iteration presents a collection of letters by more than 100 architects, addressing the most pressing issues facing their city. 

 

Letters to the Mayor: Taipei is Storefront’s first exhibition of Letters to the Mayor in AsiaThe exhibition also traveled to Taichung from March 25 to April 24, 2015. 

 

Letters to the Mayor: Taipei invited the following architects to write to Mayor of Taipei:

 

Participants

Tadao Ando, Jun Aoki, Marco Casagrande, Chi-Yi Chang, Ching-Hwa Chang and Ying-Chao Kuo, Jing-Yao Chang, Malone Chang and Yu-lin Chen, Li Hsing Chao, Yuan-Hung Chao, Milton Chen, Kuanhua Chen, Shu-Yi Chen, Po-jen Cheng, Le-Ching Chiang, Hsueh Yi Chien, Wen-chien Chiu, Hao-Hsiu Chiu, Hung-Nan Chu, Ray Chu, Ping Hung Chung, Norihiko Dan, Jia-Hui Day, Yinping Fang, Sou Fujimoto, Go Hasegawa, Ting Fung Ho, Hotaiwen, Wen Tai Hsieh, Pei-ni Beatrice Hsieh, Ying Chun Hsieh, Yen-Chi Hsu, Li-Yu Hsu, Ruey Ming Huang, Jui-Mao Huang, Sheng-Yuan Huang, Yu Cheng Hung, Chin-Yuan Hung and Kuan-Yi Tai, Junya Ishigami, Min Jay Kang, Shu Chang Kung, Wensha Kung, Hsuyuan Kuo, Chijeng Kuo, Wen Sheng Lee, Ching-Chih Lee, ShwuTing Lee, Chin-Wen Leu, Yuchang Liang, Ming-Pin Liao, Wei-Li Liao, Chia Shun Liao, Chen-Yu Lien, Wan-Jen Lin, Fang-Yi Lin, Bo Yang Lin, Chiaju Lin, Andy Lin, aLing, Tien Ling, Ke-Fung Liou, Po-Hung Liu, Chung-Sheng Liu, Winy Maas, Hsuan-Yu Mao, Izumi Okayasu, Tien Yi Pan, Joshua Jih Pan, Wenyuan Peng, REN, Bob Ryu, Sotetsu Sha, Chi-Jong Sun, Jui-pi Su, Shuwa Tei, Ming-Ying Tsai, Kuang-Tsung Tseng, Borden Tseng, Wei Tseng, Katsu Umebayashi, Chun-Hsiung Wang, Pe Jen Wang, Che Wang, Ming-Hsien Wang, Yao-Pang Wang, Steven Wu, Sheng-Ming Wu, Hsiu Chuan Yang, Kyle Yang, Enta Yang, ShihHung Yang, Yi-Yen Wu, Yasutaka Yoshimura

 

 

PROJECT TEAM

 

Local Curator

JUT Foundation for the Arts and Architecture

 

Mayoral Desk / Architect’s Table Design

Designed by the Taipei-based 3 pounds Co. Ltd, a life-size Monopoly board game is used to invite public participation, provide a platform for the general public to voice their opinions, and facilitate communication with city officials.

 

Spectators are invited to participate through card decks titled: Chance and Community Chest, by writing down their own comments to the mayor:

 

「Chance」:If I were the Mayor, my city would be…
「Community Chest」:I am a resident  of____City,I hope my Mayor would…?

 

Wallpaper Design

Also using components from the Monopoly, red houses represent the number of social housing in Taipei, while green houses represent general residences. Red houses, scattered among the green houses, occupy merely 0.08% of the image. 0.08% is also the ratio of the affordable housing provided by the City to the general ones, a small number so negligible in urban development.

 

 

ABOUT LETTERS TO THE MAYOR

 

Letters to the Mayor is an itinerant exhibition that displays real letters written by architects to their city mayors. Initiated by Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2014, the project has traveled to more than 15 cities across the globe, including Bogota, Mexico City, Athens, Panama City, Taipei, Mariupol, Madrid, Lisbon, and Buenos Aires, among others. See here for a list of iterations.  

 

Letters to the Mayor invites 100 architects in each city to write a letter to their mayor as a means of bringing innovative ideas and visions of the city closer to the decision-makers, and vice versa.

 

Throughout history, architects have engaged with this responsibility and the structures of economic, political, and cultural power in different ways and with varying degrees of success. With the rise of globalization and the homogenization of the contemporary city, the role of the architect in the political arena has often been relegated to answering questions that others have asked. 

 

Letters to the Mayor questions this dynamic, and invites local and global architects to deliver their thoughts directly to the desks of elected officials, and simultaneously into the public consciousness.

 

 

SUPPORT

 

Letters to the Mayor is part of Storefront for Art and Architecture’s initiative Architecture Conflicts, a project with the purpose of identifying pressing issues, ongoing conflicts, and design solutions in relation to the most important urban problems today. Architecture Conflicts is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

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