“Asian Review 026” ― Taiwan part3
“Xinyi Special District” and “Taipei 101”
Taipei is located in a basin surrounded by the Yangming mountains national park, and the old town is spread out in the area surrounded by three rivers, the Danshui River, the Keelung River and the New Store River. The CBD (central business district) has been formed in the west part of this area, from Taipei Station to the Chung Cheng Memorial Hall.
The development zone called Xinyi Special District where the government have actively been investing from the 1990’s is located in the east of the CBD and south of the Matsuyama Airport. The Taipei Municipal Government Office also moved to this area in 1994, and the area became the actual Sub Center of Taipei.
The most outstanding landmark of Xinyi area is “Taipei 101”. It was completed in 2004 as the tallest (509m) building in the world at that time (101 floors above ground and 5 basements, with a total floor area of 412,500 m²). It is also famous for its outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor, 449 meters above the ground.
Around this there is the World Trade Center Exhibition Hall, the International Conference Center, the Novel Hall, the Vieshow Cinemas (Cinema Complex), the Grand Hyatt Taipei, the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Xinyi Place, the Uni-President Department Store and etc. In Japan, the department store industry is already over the hill and gradually changing their style, but in Taiwan, the conventional style department stores are still alive.
“Taipei 101” with 509 meters’ in height was the tallest in the world until July 2007 when the “Burj Khalifa” in Dubai overtook it. Afterwards, Shanghai Tower and the other buildings also participated in the building height competition, but “Taipei 101” keeps the 6th rank in the world excluding radio wave towers. Aluminum frame curtain wall made of two layers of glass are supported by CFT (concrete filled steel pipe) structure. There is a mass damper with a total weight of 650 tons made of several steel plates with a diameter of about 5.5 m and a thickness of 125 mm stacked on top of the 87th floor, suppressing the horizontal vibration by strong winds.
A silhouette like inverted trapezoid vertically stacked from the 27th floor to the 90th floor is designed with an image of a treasure tower or bamboo knots symbolizing Chinese traditional culture. There are 8 “units” consisted by 8 storeys, and there is a reason to feature the number “8”. It is because “8” is an auspicious number in the Chinese culture. It is said that its origin is the “Bagua” (eight symbols) used in Taoist cosmology, and that the Cantonese word “eight” has the same pronunciation with the word “development”.
Aside from that, in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and etc., it is well known that the price of a license plate becomes very high when it symbolizes a good meaning. In 2012, the plate of “AAA – 8888” had sold for 2 million New Taiwan Dollars (about 7 million yen if 1 NT$ = 3.5 yen)! Not only a car itself, a license plate seems to be a status symbol here.
