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Issue 11: Joined Somewhere, Connected Throughout—Chen Chi-Kwan, Tunghai University Methodist Hall
The campus of Taiwan’s first private university Tunghai University stretches across the suburbs of Taichung a city in the center-west …
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Issue 10: The Billowing School—Chen Ren-He, Wave Building, San Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics (Kaohsiung)
When talking about the first generation of post-war Taiwanese architects there are famous individuals such as Wang Da-Hong who studied under…
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Terunobu Fujimori│006: The Shitomi of the Kondo Hall at Ninnaji Temple
…ch was not invented until the Middle Ages both in Europe and in Asia. …
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The Prince Karuizawa: The Materiality of Kiyoshi Seike’s Windows
The New Karuizawa Prince Hotel (now The Prince Karuizawa) built in 198…
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Issue 9: The Windy County Office—Yilan County Hall (Atelier Zo)
While this column has primarily introduced the windows of unnamed buildings in Taiwan there are a number of works of modern and contemporary…
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Issue 8: The Town of Floating Pigeon Lofts
Houses stand there dotting the farmland. Small huts sit above them in the sky. It’s a bit of a strange sight but one that you’ll…
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Issue 7: The Slate Village Down the Mountains: Pingtung
There are now around 580000 native Taiwanese (the term used in Chinese. In Japan it seems the term “indigenous” is often used) r…
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Issue 6: Beckoning Qilous
Just about everyone in Taiwan eats similar food from the countless semi-outdoor dining halls there. The students all line up for newly opene…
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Issue 5: The Matsu Islands: Small Windows on the Frontier (Part 2)
The first morning of the new year arrived as I stayed in my room on th…
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Issue 4: The Matsu Islands: Small Windows on the Frontier (Part 1)
The Matsu islands are located in northwest Taiwan about as close to mainland China as you can get. It’s one of the farthest locations …
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Architecture with “Madosoto” at all times and in all places
…he Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages so the premise is that one does not look out of windows because they are made of stained glass. Bu…
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No.0: Six Topics for Makoto Ueda’s Interpretation of the Window Space
To kick off the series “Vague Focal Space at the Window” I interviewed Makoto Ueda the former Editor in Chief of Toshi Jutaku (Urban Housing…
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Issue 3: Where the Pavilions Went : Orchid Island (Part 2)
I left the village of Yeyin and took a trip around the island. Going o…
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Issue 2: The Buried Black Roofs : Orchid Island (Part 1)
While we may often speak of “Taiwanese people” people belonging to a variety of ethnicities and religions live in Taiwan. While …
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Issue 1: Windows Visited by Spirits: Pingdong
After his experience on a journey through villages and folk houses in …
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Final Issue: Asia, Traveled through a Window
This will be the final installment of my four-year-long serialization documenting my eight-month-long trip. While I had decided where to go …
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Life in the Holy Land: Jerusalem, Israel
I could see land the color of milk out of the airplane window. My journey had started in China moving ever westward from there and I was now…
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Rushing Along the Nile: Egypt and the Nile
After walking around Cairo for a few days I took a flight to Aswan Egypt’s southernmost city. From there I followed the Nile River nor…
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Facing the Arches: Cairo, Egypt (part 2)
Before Al-Qahirah the city that would become Cairo was created in the 10th century the city of Fustat stood slightly to the south. In this r…
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Movie “A City of Columns”
…meters) per side. Then in the Middle Ages the symmetrical grid pattern for aristocratic mansions was replaced by planning in which the neigh…
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A Combining City: Cairo
I got on a plane in Jordan and flew to Cairo Egypt. It was my first time on the African continent. Though most capitals are busy Cairo seeme…
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Sensing Mother Earth: Petra, Jordan
During my trip I saw many ruins in many countries. While these sites stood distant from our modern lives the people who created them must no…
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Religion and Cities: Isfahan, Iran
I experienced no small amount of culture shock in Iran as it was the first Islamic country I visited. Many of the people I passed on the str…
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Memories of a Skylight: Tashqurqan Part 3
The following morning when I arrived at Classy’s house at the scheduled time we met with another man who seemed to be about the same age as …
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“Traditional” Balsamic Vinegar in Modena, Northern Italy
…bility and emperors since the Middle Ages. The reason why Modena is said to be the birthplace of balsamic vinegar is because the region’s so…
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Shifted Windows: Masuleh, Iran
There is a small village in the valleys of Iran known as Masuleh that has stood there for over a thousand years. Its tiered homes are built …
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Memories of a Skylight: Tashqurqan Part 2
After driving for about 7 minutes in Classy’s car the windshield of which had a crack in it we arrived at a wetland area that was completely…
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Memories of a Skylight: Tashqurqan, Part 1
I headed further west from Turpan by train to arrive at a city in the western reaches of China called Kashgar. From there I climbed a mounta…
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Breathing in the Desert: Yazd, Iran
The bus that headed from northern to southern Iran passed once more through alien landscapes created by the desert. It’s as if one mus…
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A Desert below Sea Level — Turpan, Part 3
What I learned from these grape-drying huts was that the key to a dwelling in a desert below sea level was creating shadows by bricks poplar…
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Starting by Surrounding: Takht-e Soleymān, Iran
I took a cheap shared taxi from Zanjan in northwest Iran headed next to the ancient ruins of Takht-e Soleymān. An archeological site centere…
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A Desert Below Sea Level — Turpan, Part 1
What kind of place is a desert below sea level? Turpan is located in the west of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region an autonomous region …
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The City Is a Bazaar: Tabriz, Iran
Outside my bus window a new sight to me stretched as far as the eye could see. Smooth mountains that seemed to be striped red and white shar…
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Zhangcun: The Needs of the Underground Part 3
I realized something was strange here in the centenarian’s Yaodong. The entrances to Yaodongs are generally shaped into a pointed arc but up…
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“Placing” a Home: East Gilan, Iran, part 2
In Kachalam a village in East Gilan a man agreed to show me around in his car despite it only being our first meeting. As he did I discovere…
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Zhangcun: The Needs of the Underground Part 2
I’ve come to realize that meeting with elders is the best way to learn about their village. Walking through a loess land of beautiful green …
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Houses beyond the Places of Scenic Beauty (2)
Repeating myself the phrase “your house” in Chinese the old man and I walked for about 40 minutes through a town located outside of the scen…
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Zhangcun, “needs of underground” Part 1
A square hole on dry ocherous land. People live inside that hole. I stopped in on the village of Zhangcun in Sanmenxia City Henan. It is loc…
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“Placing” a Home: East Gilan, Iran (Part 1)
Iran was an unknown land to me before I visited it myself. My vague image of it had been of a desolate desert dotted with ancient remains. A…
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Windows: Openings and devices
Laurent Stalder a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) has researched various threshold devices in archit…
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Houses beyond the Places of Scenic Beauty (1)
We arrive at the town of Wuzhen in northern Zhejiang after a two-hour bus ride from Shanghai. This is an area famous for its beautiful river…
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Shanghai, Bars of Iron Sprouting from Windows (2)
My steps become lighter now that I’ve decided what I’ll look for. This is the beginning of a trip to search for bars of iron. Ten steps out …
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Looking at Freespace through the Windows, Part 2
…state-owned shipyard from the Middle Ages. The once-vertical wall of the space is laid on the floor as if to literally represent Montielʼ s …
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Movie “The Birth Canal”
…style of shrines up until the Middle Ages is well preserved even after reconstruction. Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine consists of a group of shrines …
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Vino Santo in Trentino
Drive a car east from Milan go north through Verona and you will see the largest lake in Italy Lake Garda. Continue running north along the …
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Kibber, India : The Hidden Hole (part 2)
It was cold in the morning so high above sea level. But when I walked out to the third-floor terrace at my inn I found it surprisingly warm.…
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Shanghai, Bars of Iron Sprouting from Windows (1)
Arriving in Shanghai I was surprised at how noisy it was. This is not a critique: Shanghai is the type of place that if you don’t assert you…
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Kibber, India : The Hidden Hole (part 1)
Climbing even higher past Kinnaur district in North India I passed the treeline to find an outstretched land of nothing but brown rocky moun…