Breathtakingly beautiful—the century-old Hualien Tobacco Factory with structures full of "warmth"

Text and photos byCultural Renewal Stories

[Who is Yoshitaka Watanabe?]

Yoshitaka Watanabe is a Japanese architect who loves Taiwan’s Japanese-style architecture and gained widespread attention for creating a “Japanese Architecture Map of Taiwan” using Google Maps.
From October 3 to 5 this year (2016), he was invited by Hualien’s Tourism Marketing Division to visit many Japanese-style buildings in Hualien and documented them with exquisite hand-drawn notes.
Come discover how beautiful Taiwan’s Japanese-style architecture looks through the eyes of a Japanese architect with us.

On the second day in Hualien, Watanabe started his day’s itinerary with a visit to the Hualien Tobacco Factory. Built in 1913, the Hualien Tobacco Factory currently holds no cultural heritage status. In 2015, it was even reported that the cypress wood trusses in several buildings had been stolen, and the damaged roof structures were at risk of collapsing at any time. Come explore the preservation value of these buildings through Watanabe’s perspective with us.

▲ (Abandoned Hualien Tobacco Factory. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

“The truss structures of the various buildings in the Hualien Tobacco Factory are all different, but each one is breathtakingly beautiful. They are not only rationally designed using the pinnacle of human wisdom, but were also actually processed by human hands.” Watanabe believes that such truss structures are full of “warmth.”

▲ (Trusses in the Hualien Tobacco Factory buildings. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

“However, the true strength of trusses should be their ability to span large distances and support massive structures like these.” Watanabe was surprised to find that the ledger beams of some wooden trusses inside the buildings had been sawn off, leaving only the parts with wooden pegs and bolts. (Editor’s note: The ledger beam refers to the part originally located at the base of the triangular truss structure, parallel to the ground.)

▲ (Damaged truss structures. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

Watanabe wrote in his notes: “I’ve heard before that the ledger beams of trusses are just there to prevent the rafters from splitting apart like legs, and this scene seems to confirm that idea.” In fact, Watanabe also observed that the upper parts of the walls on both sides had tilted outward significantly, and they were only prevented from collapsing thanks to the support of buttresses. (Editor’s note: The rafters refer to the two equal sides of the triangular structure.)

▲ (Watanabe’s hand-drawn notes. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

“The RC factory and steel-framed factory located deep within (the complex), each building quietly tells the story of the beauty of practicality.” Watanabe believes that the Hualien Tobacco Factory not only offers insight into the evolution of construction methods across different eras—wooden, steel-framed, and reinforced concrete—but that the beauty and grandeur of its architecture are reasons why he thinks these buildings should be preserved as much as possible. (Editor’s note: RC stands for reinforced concrete.)

▲ (Buildings inside the Hualien Tobacco Factory. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

▲ (Buildings inside the Hualien Tobacco Factory. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

▲ (Buildings inside the Hualien Tobacco Factory. Photo credit: Yoshitaka Watanabe)

Faced with the current situation of abandonment, difficulty in adaptive reuse, and continued vandalism by irresponsible individuals, how to preserve these old factories that hold both architectural aesthetics and historical significance is an issue that the local cultural affairs bureau needs to address as soon as possible. Please join us in showing your concern.

Want to know where else Watanabe went during these three days? Hurry and “Follow Yoshitaka Watanabe on a Journey Through Hualien’s Japanese-Style Architecture”!

This article is republished with permission from “Cultural Renewal Stories”