Taichung Broadcasting Bureau Audio Guide

Taichung Broadcasting Bureau: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Taichiung Broadcasting Bureau

   Welcome to a building that once sent the voice of central Taiwan out over the air. You are in Taichung's North District, on Radio Station Street, and the address here is simply number 1. The Taichiung Broadcasting Bureau, known locally as 臺中放送局, opened in 1935 and is one of the most distinctive historic buildings in the city. This guide stays with what is clearly recorded about the building itself: its founding, its radio years, its unusual look, its rescue and its life today. The story begins in a part of town that was then called the water source district, and the radio station was built there as part of a much bigger plan to wire an island for sound. As we go, look for the rounded arches, the notched parapet along the roofline and the tall cylindrical stairwell at the center. Together they make a radio station look like something out of a storybook.

2. 02

   Taichiung Broadcasting Bureau: Voice of the Central Island

   The station was founded in 1935, in the Showa 10 year of the Japanese era. It stood in what was then Shindaka-cho, the water source district of Taichung. It was built by the Japanese government to develop broadcasting and to serve as a relay point for island-wide radio. It was the third broadcasting station on the island, after Taipei and Tainan, and its call sign was J F C K. Its official opening came on the eleventh of May, 1935, when it began work as the Taichung branch of the Taiwan Broadcasting Association. For the central region it became a key base for sending out news and programs. The story continued after the war. In 1945 it became a station of the Broadcasting Corporation of China, and after the central government moved to Taiwan in 1949, the reorganized Broadcasting Corporation of China ran the Taichung station here. Radio Station Street has only this one numbered address, which tells you how closely the street and the station are tied together.

3. 03

   Taichiung Broadcasting Bureau: A Castle Built for Radio

   Step back and look at the front. The facade borrows from Romanesque architecture and a simplified Gothic style. There is a large round-arched entrance, wide windows with flat arches, slender arched windows, a crenellated parapet like a castle wall, and a round stairwell rising in the center. No wonder visitors say it looks like a European castle. At the same time, it does not follow any single European tradition. Its decoration blends Baroque, Roman and Islamic geometric patterns, so it is usually classed as a transitional style building rather than a pure copy of one historical model. Now look at the outside of the second-floor balcony. You will see seven square white panels. The middle three carry the initials of the Broadcasting Corporation of China, and the panels on either side carry the emblem of Taichung from the Japanese era. Two eras of the building's life sit together on a single balcony.

4. 04

   Taichiung Broadcasting Bureau: Rescue and Rebirth

   In 1998 the Broadcasting Corporation of China moved out. On the fifth of May that year its Taichung station relocated to an upper floor of a high-rise, and the land and buildings were returned to the city government. For a time the old station served as municipal office space. Time had taken its toll. The wooden structure had decayed, the roof leaked, and the 921 earthquake damaged it further. Plans to use it as an office were dropped because the repair costs were so large. Then came recognition. In 2002 the Taichung city government registered it as a historic building, praising its complete scale and the good preservation of the main building, the auxiliary buildings and the surroundings. Restoration was entrusted to the architect Chen Bo-nian, started in September 2003 at a cost of 22 million New Taiwan dollars, and finished in September 2004. A story from this era: the singer Jeff Chang, who hosted a lunchtime program on the Broadcasting Corporation of China's pop network, loved the building and its wooden furniture so much that he is said to have told the broadcaster he would like to buy it to live in.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Part of the charm here lies in the grounds. The building is surrounded by a Japanese-style garden with shady trees, and the central pond is planted with irises, where low afternoon light can cast the building's reflection on the water. Since 2015 the site has been entrusted to a local Taichung team, who have used the building for exhibitions and leisure events in the spirit of sharing and passing things on. The city's cultural heritage office lists the address as number 1, Radio Station Street, North District, and currently describes the site as being in a preparation period and temporarily closed to the public, so check the latest status before you plan a visit. Wherever you stand around it, take a moment to look at the roofline, the round stairwell and the balcony panels. Then ask yourself what it must have felt like to hear a voice from this building come out of a radio far away in 1935.