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Architect Hou was woken up by a phone call. When he got up to answer the phone, he realized the storm had passed, and the power was back.

“Come to the National Science Education Center for a meeting.”

“For what?”

“For the reconstruction of the Radio Station for Education.”

“What happened to the station?”

“The typhoon blew away its roof.”

Hou Chung-Mu quickly washed up, changed, and rejected his wife’s offer of breakfast. He couldn’t be late, in order not to offend the official from the Ministry of Education.

In the meeting, Architect Hou realized the structure housing the Radio Station for Education as a part of the National Science Education Center was badly damaged. When they inspected the building, he could feel the dampness in the air, although the sky was clear now. The windows facing the street were cracked, sunlight shone in directly. The roof over the radio station was torn away, and all the machines were exposed to the open air.

Architect Hou stood amidst the rubble, surveying the scene alongside several officials from the Ministry of Education. Director Lin, a woman with a clipboard and a grim expression, crunched over the broken glass and twisted metal panels with her boots.

“This is worse than I expected,” Director Lin said, her voice tight with concern. She gestured to the gaping hole where the roof had been. “The radio station was a critical communication hub. We can’t afford for it to be offline for long.”

Architect Hou nodded. He stepped carefully over the fallen tiles, cheap duplicates of the ones seen in the Heaven Altar in Beijing. Scanning the exposed interior, he saw water still dripping from the edges of the broken ceiling, pooling on the floor below. The control console was soaked, and a machine he did not know the function of was strewn about. Architect Hou suspected that it had gone beyond repair.

“The structure itself is sound,” Hou said after a moment, his voice calm and measured. “The roof was designed to withstand extreme weather, but this typhoon… it was unprecedented. The wind speeds exceeded every calculation one could make.”

In fact, Hou noticed the roof was simply an added structure of the building, like an extra hat over a box. Instead of sitting over the brackets like traditional structures of ancient Chinese architecture, the curves of the roof did not really fit the straight lines of the box. Hou Chung-Mu totally understood the situation. Since the Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan from the mainland, it claimed its orthodox status as the inheritor of Chinese culture. All the public works, including the new museum for the collections it took from the Forbidden City, the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the new congress house, and the landmark Grand Hotel, were all ordained by the national leader to be in traditional Chinese style. Nevertheless, Hou Chung-Mu, like most of his fellow architects relocating to Taiwan from China, were trained by modern architecture programs. Most of them were taught by professors from America or Europe in the top universities in China before the war, and many of them, like Hou himself, had furthered their architectural education in graduate schools in the US or Europe. They had no idea how to materialize traditional Chinese architecture, even though they all studied the history of Chinese architecture from papers.

One of the officials, a nervous young man, chimed in. “What about the cost of repairs? The Ministry’s budget is already stretched thin.”

Hou knew the structure of the box was generally intact, but he had no idea how much it would cost to repair the Chinese roof. If he was asked, he would have to ask around.

“We have a new fund from the USAID, it will be helpful,” Director Lin said. “But we need more precise numbers for the restoration, so we can report to the funder in the US.”

Hou Chung-Mu gathered that he was the one obliged to make the budget, so he said with great care, “I will give you the calculations two weeks from now.”

“Two weeks is too long, can we have it in one week?” Director Lin pushed.

“Let’s make it ten days. The prices of materials fluctuate quickly these days, and transportation also has different prices.” The truth was, Architect Hou had no idea what kind of materials the restoration needed. Was a simpler modernist roof acceptable? He figured not since it would make the entire building look like a head wearing a broken hat of the Chinese courtiers.

“Alright,” Director Lin checked her clipboard, “it will be next Thursday, then.”

Hou Chung-Mu wondered why the Ministry of Education did not ask the architect conducting the original design. Although he did not agree with the structural programs of the roof, asking the design architect first was more reasonable.

The next morning, Hou Chung-Mu got a phone call from the same man who had called him earlier, Mr. Chien, telling him that the Ministry of Education had decided to construct an independent building for the radio station, and he should enter the open competition.

“How about the budget report of the repair?”

“Forget about it, we have demanded the original designer Architect Huang to take care of it.”

“Makes sense.” Hou wondered why the Ministry did not make the same decision yesterday. “But I was told the funding for repair was already insufficient, how come the Ministry has the money for an entire new building?”

«The US is financing constructions for education in Taiwan, we can apply for the USAID’s funding.”

The next week, Architect Hou brought his design draft to discuss with Mr. Chien, as the latter required.

In Mr. Chien’s office, blueprints and sketches Hou Chung-Mu brought spread out on the table between them. Architect Hou began to introduce his vision for the new radio station. He unfolded the first blueprint, revealing a sleek, minimalist structure characterized by clean lines and large glass facades. «This design maximizes natural light and symbolizes transparency and openness in our broadcasting efforts,» he explained.

Hou continued, pointing to specific sections of the sketches. «The ground floor features a spacious lobby and exhibition area. This interactive space will connect visitors with the history of radio broadcasting.»

As he moved through the designs, Hou highlighted the layout of the interior spaces. «Our studios are strategically positioned to ensure optimal sound quality and minimize external noise. Each studio is equipped with the latest apparatus.»

He then turned to the central atrium’s design. «This multifunctional space fosters creativity and collaboration among staff. It’s designed to be a communal area where ideas flow freely, fueling the creation of content that resonates with our audience.»

Concluding his presentation, Hou looked at Mr. Chien, meeting his gaze. «This radio station is more than just a building. It’s a place where voices are heard, stories are told, and connections are made.»

Mr. Chien nodded thoughtfully, but Hou Chung-Mu couldn’t tell if he was impressed. Then Mr. Chien took a ball-point pen and drew lines on the top of the building. After the very childish hand drawing of an obviously Chinese roof, he added a pavilion attached to the building, also in traditional Chinese style. Hou was stunned. How rude Mr. Chien was to destroy a professional’s design by arbitrarily drawing something over it, especially when it was so amateur and rough!

“The priority of the competition is the design must be traditional Chinese.” Seeing how devastated Architect Hou was, Mr. Chien explained. And before Hou Chung-Mu was going to reply that he did not know anything about traditional Chinese architecture, Mr. Chien suggested, “Just give it a Chinese hat, and a Chinese additive structure, you are good. We will make sure you win the competition.”

Hou Chung-Mu was so surprised. Wasn’t it an open competition, and any business with similar professionalism and qualifications were eligible to enter? He wasn’t even sure he wanted to enter if traditional Chinese style was the condition for design. How come Mr. Chien was able to promise he’d win the competition?

During the following weeks, before the deadline of the competition, Mr. Chien called Architect Hou from time to time to remind him about the progress of the design and make sure the traditional Chinese architectural elements were included as the major visual theme. Architect Hou had no choice but to make a phone call to Architect Huang’s firm, humbly expressing his wish to pay a visit to Architect Huang.

Once he stepped into Architect Huang’s office, Hou Chung-Mu saw the floor plan of the National Science Education Center. Architect Huang, a generation more senior than Hou, had rightly guessed the purpose of his visit.

“What comes to your mind when seeing this plan?”

“To tell the truth, I thought of Bauhaus.”

“Exactly. All floor plans start from squares. Check this out.” Architect Huang took out another sheet of floor plans.

“This is the Forbidden City.”

“Yes, and if you look at their cross-sections,” Architect Huang took out more diagram sheets, “they are all kinds of combinations of squares and cubes.”

“Depends on how you are using it,” Hou added, “the only difference is the roofs and decorative entries. Even the arcades, terraces, and corridors are comparable.”

Then he took out the diagrams of the Kenkō Shrine, the original building of the current Science Education Center. The major functional spaces also consisted of squares of different dimensions laying on a rectangular site.

“The shrine was built in 1928, with a wooden structure. We replaced the wooden columns and beams with reinforced concrete, altered the partitions without changing the basic spatiality for the Center. We had no intention to replace the Japanese roof with the palace-style Chinese roof, the building does not serve as a palace.”

“But Mr. President wanted the style.”

Architect Huang nodded, “And of course the gate, stone lanterns, and the bridge that indicate Japanese elements were either altered or demolished.”

“What a pity,” Architect Hou said. Japanese aesthetics was high art, but the Nationalist government did not want the public to identify with their former colonizers.

“So the real challenge is how to produce Chinese roofs, among other decorative Chinese structures, without compromising the modern functions of the building.”

“How?”

Architect Huang shrugged, “No one in Taiwan knows. Local experts have all passed away, and we have never been taught how to build Chinese roofs. The only solution is to create the structures with rebars and concrete.”

“Rebars and concrete?!”

Architect Huang blinked his eyes, calmly.

So a traditional Chinese roof over the modernist cubes for the new radio station was constructed, with a Chinese porch for the entrance. Now Hou Chung-Mu knew the truth of all the traditional Chinese architecture in Taiwan, including the semi-replica of the palace museum, the martyr’s shrine for national revolutionaries who built the Republic of China, and one of the first public banks, among several buildings with the imperial crown in Taiwan, were all RC structures, instead of the craft arts of Chinese architecture. As to the competition, budgets, material procurements, and funding from the USAID, it is another story.

And with so many buildings of traditional Chinese style erected on the island, the Republic of China in Taiwan was able to claim its status as the orthodox Chinese cultural embodiment, especially when the Cultural Revolution took place in the Mainland.