Zhongshan Building

Zhongshan Building is an unfamiliar place to both foreign tourists and youngsters in Taiwan. It is also a less popular attraction to sightseers going to Yangmingshan. However, if you have a closer look on red TWD100 bill, you will see this building behind the founding father of Republic of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen (國父孫中山). The building was proposed by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in 1965 to commemorate the 100th birthday of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and only took 13 months to complete overall construction. It was mainly used for political assembly and reception of foreign guests. The grand hall of first floor was capable to hold meeting of up to 1,800 attendants, and the grand restaurant on third floor could provide meal of 2,000 people simultaneously. Before president was universal elected, it was also primary venue of members of National Assembly (國民大會) holding their meeting and constitutional amendment. At that time, the government was still upholding “Unity of Great China” concept, so the assembly members (國大代表) from all over Taiwan would be granted with honorarium for their attendance. Due to huge number of these attendants, the second floor had had a post office specifically for receiving the honorarium. Later on, since National Assembly was deformed and the building was continually corroded by the sulfur pit below, it was forced to close and repair.

Nevertheless, in response to tourism development and heritage conservation, Zhongshan Building opens four touring sessions every day except Chinese New Year. Throughout the touring of about an hour, visitors could see marble stairs with dedicated craving, colorful ceiling, lamp revealing antique beauty, traditional and magnificent meeting hall, room of Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling (蔣宋美齡) and even the only bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-Kuo (蔣經國) standing together. As original purpose of the building is a memorial of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the idea of “lucky and auspicious” was added into architecture details. For example, every step of the stair is sealed with Chinese character “壽 (shou, life or long-lived)”; lamp holders have character “福 (fu, blessing or happiness)” craved on; along handrail of stair from first to third floors, in total 100 peaches (壽桃, objectized representation of long-lived) out of marble could be found. Apart from the interior, the location of Zhongshan Building also has its symbolic meaning on feng shui (風水): it has hills guarding on its right and left, while being backed by Qixingshan (七星山) with the view of Taipei City at its front. Moreover, the building itself was constructed above a hot spring. As a believer of feng shui, Chiang Kai-shek had seen it as an exceptional good location.

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