The Kaohsiung City Government secured funding from the Ministry of Culture to propose the Xingbin Project for Hamasen and the Jiancheng Project for the Old Fengshan City in Zuoying, aiming to restore these areas over eight years with a total investment of NT$2.7 billion. Among them, Lane 60 of Dengshan Street is a historic site where an ancient path intersects with a waterway. It officially opened on September 30, marking the completion of the first “Recreate Historic Sites” project field in Taiwan.
The Ministry of Culture provides subsidies to cities and counties for their “Recreate Historic Sites” initiatives. Kaohsiung is the only locality to have both its Jiancheng Project (NT$2 billion) and Xingbin Project (NT$700 million) approved. The Jiancheng Project aims to revive the splendor of the Old Fengshan City in Zuoying, Taiwan’s first stone-built city, while the Xingbin Project is divided into four main themes—Mountain, Port, Railway, and Town—to revitalize the historical area of Hamasen.
The Mountain theme of the Xingbin Project, a collaboration between the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Urban Development Bureau, has taken the lead in announcing the completion of the historical site at Lane 60 of Dengshan Street. This area was once where the British Vice-Consul Swinhoe, Taiwan Governor Liu Mingchuan, and Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito “intersected across time” in different eras. It will serve as an outdoor historical exhibition space, allowing visitors to step back in time.
Mayor Chen Chu stated that every city has its own stories, and the daily lives of people across different periods accumulate to form the city’s history. Only by understanding the past can one recognize oneself and move toward the future. The city government plans to gradually recreate the multi-layered temporal and spatial changes of Hamasen over eight years. “It’s deeply moving to see history converging here.”
The city government held the completion ceremony for Lane 60 of Dengshan Street yesterday, with Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture Yang Zibao personally attending to witness the event. He praised Kaohsiung for faithfully and quality-executing the Recreate Historic Sites project. An engineer by training, he also quoted the industry saying, “Construction enables urban development, but culture makes a city great,” offering his blessings to Kaohsiung.