Private citizens in front
In March of this year, the private Foundation of Historic City Conservation and Regeneration (founded in 1999 by professional architects and professors at National Cheng Kung University) launched an activity it called "Revitalization of Old Houses." The foundation chose 15 structures of at least 30 years of age, all well-preserved examples of the mixture of new and old features, and invited citizens to visit them and vote for their favorites, thereby encouraging local residents to treasure old buildings and put to them to good use.
The 15 structures selected are mostly located around the city center, and have been transformed into all kinds of formats. They include a Japanese restaurant, a coffee house, a bar, and an arts and performance space.
Today, when there is constant-one might even say relentless-novelty in urban architecture and aesthetic discourse, why is there a group of citizens in Tainan who are determined to protect old houses, and are willing to put their creative skills to work to give new life to these creaking structures? After all, it cannot honestly be said that most Tainan people avidly treasure their old houses. Perhaps the objective conditions are part of the answer.
The tides of history have washed five different regimes over the city-from the Dutch to Zheng Chenggong to the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese to the Republic of China-leaving a legacy of traditional small lanes and byways. Even today many small streets and alleyways still have the same irregular twists and turns that they have preserved since the 19th century. When you add in the facts that Tainan has been under less development pressure than other cities in Taiwan (economic development having long been centered in other locales), and that land in Tainan is zoned into very small plots, often long and narrow, unsuitable for redevelopment by commercial builders, you can see why there are so many unused old houses waiting to be rented, renovated, and reused.
The panel of judges for the "Revitalization of Old Houses" event awarded the gold medal in the category of preservation to the Byblos bar. The reasons they gave were "the style is accurate, the workmanship skilled; it uses original structural materials, displaying multiple layers with minimal alteration."
The owner, who goes by the handle "A-bon," and whose family moved to Taipei from Tainan when he was small, has a natural flair for design. After growing up he worked for his family's clothing shop for a while, but after a decade he lost interest. Keeping his "superwoman" Mom in the dark, he returned to Tainan and, with some friends, put their money into a small shop they called Byblos, selling home-made cookies. Within a year, as if they were doing a whole street reconstruction in the manner often seen in Japan, they rented the two neighboring houses to open a "nouvelle cuisine" noodle restaurant and a clothing boutique.
Having completely changed the atmosphere of the street, it was a natural next step to organize family, friends, and neighbors to decorate the street lamps, beautify walls, and plant trees and flowers. The shops implemented a policy of "half price for senior citizens" to try to keep the many elderly locals involved, and a dance company moved in as their neighbors, with A-bon helping them design their dance studio.
A-bon eventually built up a string of six different Byblos shops, but two years ago walked away from that life for half a year. Now that he has opened the Byblos bar, which he says has "rekindled his passion for life," he has taken on himself the mission of "piecing together history and culture." He relates, "I interviewed the landlord, who is 80, and all the neighbors, and slowly reconstructed the history of this row of old structures." Only then did he discover that the buildings were the first department store ever opened by a Taiwanese in the Japanese occupation era, with A-bon's bar occupying what was once the stairwell.
The old house where TeaServing is located was redesigned by Lin Yi-chen, a student in the Department of Architecture at National Cheng Kung University at the time she drew up the plan. After renovation, the ceiling beams were exposed, while the windows retained their original appearance. The spacious second floor is a meeting place, gallery, and performance space for arts groups.