The Modern Vernacular Reassessed

Introduction

In the 1960s and 1970s, walkup apartment buildings swept across the capital of Taiwan, Taipei. As the population increased exponentially and turned this East Asian city into a metropolis, ¹ rice paddies were supplanted by walkups at the urban limits and beyond. Within about twenty years, this form of multifamily housing replaced the row house as the major dwelling type in Taipei city. ² Today, the walkup apartment building (hereafter, “Taipei walkup”) ³ retains its predominance in the Taipei region, accounting for more than 50 percent of all households in the housing stock. ⁴

At the same time, Taiwan was undergoing drastic industrial transformation. In 1953, 61 percent of jobs were in agriculture, 9 percent in manufacturing, and 30 percent in commerce; by 1980, this had changed to 28 percent in agriculture, 31 percent in manufacturing, and 40 percent in commerce. ⁵ Under the influence of urbanization and population control policies, the typical stem family structure also began to disappear in favor of nuclear families, ⁶ but in spite of these changes, extended families in Taipei still tended to live in the same neighborhood if not the same apartment building. ⁷ Thus, the Taipei walkup was not simply a new type of housing; it was also the architectural crystallization of an emerging social space which brought with it a new style of urban life.

Indeed, the specific architectural type of the Taipei walkup—a quintessentially modernist midrise block with a central stair hall and two units per floor—may fairly be credited with giving postwar Taipei a modern look and providing a setting for collective urban living. Its origin can be traced back to buildings designed in Germany in the mid-1920s and early 1930s. ⁸ With the international spread of modernism, the walkup became a global type and was built in England, continental Europe, the United States, ⁹ Japan, ¹⁰ and China. ¹¹

Even so, the Taipei walkups were distinct from their predecessors. Beyond architectural discrepancies in floor plans and site planning, it is in the elevations that we see the most obvious dissimilarities in terms of materiality and iconography. While typical modernist walkups have modest façades with white walls and simple material palettes and are free from nonfunctional decoration, Taipei walkups are adorned with colorful and tactile façades using artfully designed patterns. Moreover, the colors used often have links with traditional architectures, and the patterns are suggestive of cultural symbols (Figures 1 and 9). Nonetheless, the earliest Taipei walkups were in appearance quite similar to the modernist ones and it was only later that developers and architects started to install appliqué features onto façades. The transformations of elevations show this imported type undergoing a process of localization guided by vernacular preferences. Now, many years since their debut in Taiwan, these colorful apartments have become the modern vernacular background to landmarks and high-rises such as Taipei 101 (Figure 2).

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Figure 1.

Façades of Taipei walkups.

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Figure 2.

Four- and five-story walkups and taller condominiums surround the 101-story Taipei 101.

Starting with these distinct features of the walkup façades—color and texture—the present text aims to describe how this housing form was produced and what “modern” and “vernacular” really mean in the case of Taipei walkups. Before doing this, however, a brief background is needed for our discussion of the modern and the vernacular, as these are terms that have attracted a great deal of interest in architecture. Some commentators have urged that they be redefined, while others have challenged their ambiguity. ¹²

As human geographer J. B. Jackson pointed out in the early 1980s, these critical assessments revolve around what the vernacular is in a larger cultural context. Jackson argues that the vernacular should not be simplified as merely local or “simply a crude imitation” but is “a local variation of national or international style.” ¹³ He urges us to keep in mind the relationship between a universal type and its local transformation, including the social conditions that govern that transformation. Architectural historian Gwendolyn Wright goes further and proposes that the modern and the vernacular are in fact interdependent, constantly redefining and adapting to each other. ¹⁴ The introduction to Vernacular Modernism argues that, on the one hand, modernity may not be as universal as postmodernists and others have urged and, on the other, the vernacular may not in fact be a victim. ¹⁵

Following the trajectory of “vernacular modernism,” this article focuses in particular on how global architectural trends and local society evolve in tandem, taking the Taipei walkups as a socially produced space that is shaped by interactions between the modern and the vernacular. Although previous studies have to some degree addressed the vernacular’s influence on the development of modernism, especially in terms of the work of master architects, too much attention has been given to the relationships between the vernacular and the modern in the formation and culmination of modernism, while leaving what has come since understudied. ¹⁶ In particular, scholars have held some rather abstract debates about the modern–vernacular dichotomy, but little attention has been paid to how modernist forms were adopted and adapted by people outside the mainstream.

In this respect, Fernando Luiz Lara’s study of postwar Brazilian housing is worth noting. ¹⁷ Proposing a case of modernism-made-vernacular, Lara shows how the Brazilian middle class and poorest households readily accepted modernist houses constructed by local, semi-professional builders (unlike North American families, who were very hesitant to do so), and as a result, the Brazilian modern has gone through several processes of negotiation with local construction activities. As Lara states, “the division between high architecture and popular culture has never been so pronounced as it was after modernism.” ¹⁸ Yet these modern Brazilian houses are not exactly modernist, nor are they part of high culture; rather, they belong to a lively local building system that readily adopts new styles.

At first glance, the transformation process of the Taipei walkup may seem very similar to that of the Brazilian example. But if we examine the conditions of production, we see that the contrasts between high and low culture, and those between high modernism and local populism, were less significant in Taipei than in Brazil. In the absence of an avant-garde discourse of architectural modernism, Taipei residents of all social levels eventually came to adopt the new housing type, which was in fact a rather strange copy of mainstream modernism. Even so, this gradual replacement of local houses with apartment buildings should not be seen merely as part of the modernization process; rather, the Taipei walkups should be considered a spatial manifestation of the merging of modernist ideologies with vernacular preferences. Furthermore, this manifestation was predicated on the playing out of Cold War politics in an East Asian state.

One of the most telling facets of this social situation is the substantial amount of aid Taiwan received from the United States. Between 1951 and 1965, in order to stabilize Taiwan’s economy, aid programs donated US$1.465 billion, ¹⁹ which was a rather large sum for an East Asian state (the fifth highest in the world, in terms of the total amount received per capita). ²⁰ By demonstrating that the acceptance of democratic ideology would result in stable government and rapid economic development, this financial support of developing countries was intended to prevent the expansion of Communism. ²¹

In addition to its political undertones, U.S. aid in Taiwan created a pro-American atmosphere and a preference for anything “U.S.” This fashion soon spread to civil sectors of Taiwanese society and was intensified when postwar modernism in architecture and planning was introduced via the politico-cultural route. However, it is important to avoid over-estimating U.S. influence, and to this end we should keep in mind the pre-existing building culture in Taiwan. As Howard Davis puts it, building culture is “the coordinated system of knowledge, rules, and procedures that is shared by people who participate in the building activity and that determine the form buildings and cities take.” ²² As this paper will show, the preexisting building culture in Taiwan consisted in the architects’ and developers’ design palettes of conventional building materials, familiar color schemes, and cultural iconographies. In conjunction with the modernist model, their skills and knowledge were used to create the modern vernacular Taipei walkup, and hence Taipei’s contemporary look.

U.S. Architectural Influences on Taiwan

During the Cold War, American modernist architecture and planning impacted Taiwan through the financial and administrative power of the United States and its aid programs. On the one hand, the United States collaborated with local planning professionals through the Foreign Advisory Group associated with the United Nations (most of whom were from the United States); ²³ on the other hand, scholarships from U.S. aid programs enabled Taiwanese technocrats to study abroad. ²⁴ Subsequently, these actions would trigger a series of planning initiatives, projects, and college courses, with the result that the education of planners and the planning system in Taiwan acquired a distinctly American flavor, even though few large-scale projects actually materialized. ²⁵

In addition to planning advice, U.S.-sponsored programs contributed to the construction of numerous institutional buildings using modernist architectural forms, some of the most remarkable of which were in universities, such as the campuses of National Cheng Kung University ²⁶ and National Chengchi University ²⁷ and National Taiwan University’s Agricultural Exhibition Hall. (This hall, now registered as a historical landmark, was designed by a former student and employee of Walter Gropius. ²⁸ ) Built in an era when resources were so scarce that any new building was considered a luxury, these public buildings are good examples of the vast building activity carried out on the back of U.S. aid during the first two decades of postwar Taiwan. Thus, U.S. aid fostered the political and economic context in which the Taipei walkup was created.

In the housing sector, midrise hall-type walkup apartments were being presented as early as 1962 in a series of Design Drawings for Affordable Housing (Figure 3). ²⁹ The Bureau of Public Work, the agency that produced these drawings, comprised many U.S. aid program scholarship recipients who had been greatly influenced by modern U.S. planning ideology. ³⁰ Intended to enhance the efficiency of housing production, the booklets contained sets of schematic drawings focusing on housing types. Templates provided variations in size and form within each type, though all units were very small. Drawings were also taken from real examples of public housing, which, however, only consisted of free-standing and row houses—although the government introduced the apartment types, it clearly did not put them at the forefront of its efforts to solve the housing problem.

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Figure 3.

Elevation drawings of hall-type walkup apartment buildings in Design Drawings of Affordable Housing.

In 1968, Astrid Monson, an American foreign advisor on housing, explicitly advocated walkup apartments for the Taipei region. ³¹ Monson calculated the monthly incomes of Taipei citizens in various occupations and determined the mortgage rates which would deliver affordable housing for a minimal owner-occupied dwelling. She concluded that condominiums with elevators would be too expensive, and hence prohibitive for Taipei, but that midrise walkup apartment buildings could provide a similar and much-needed density. Midrise walkups also cost much less than low-rise apartment buildings and buildings with elevators by increasing density but avoiding the expense of installing elevators. ³²

Although the overall number of housing units constructed through U.S. aid was rather low, ³³ advices from U.S. urban planning professional and the Design Drawings for Affordable Housing may have enabled the United States to impact the direction of modernism in Taiwan to a significant extent. There were also direct architectural influences, as is clearly shown by two examples of public housing funded by U.S. aid: the South Airport Apartments (1963–1964) ³⁴ and the Shuiyuan Series II–III (1965–1968). Costly red face brick was used on the exterior infill walls of these buildings, in line with the wishes of American experts, who had approval over the Taiwanese architects’ drawings. ³⁵

Today, it is almost impossible to determine whether the American experts’ ideas about red face brick might have included some interpretation of the Taiwanese vernacular (as shown in Figure 9, for example), but the final result was something of a mélange. The façades were at once a modernist manifestation honoring the naked material and a nostalgic representation of both New England brick architecture and Taiwan’s traditional buildings. The red-bricked walls framed in reinforced concrete skeletons became one of the most iconic architectural features of these housing projects (Figure 4).

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Figure 4.

Red face brick infill walls on the Shuiyuan Series II–III (1965–68), five-story hall-type walkups with open-air stairs.

The Birth of the Taipei Walkups

Against this background, we see two types of agents linking the U.S. to the birth of the Taipei walkups: the developer and the architect. The first group of four-story walkup apartments in Taipei, the United New Village, ³⁶ was developed in 1961 by Hong-Yen Su. A former English teacher, Su changed career to work for the International Cooperation Administration (ICA), the U.S. aid agent. Su was aware that the housing shortage was a problem that affected not only Taiwanese staff at the ICA but also Taipei’s booming population, so he persuaded his highly paid ICA colleagues to join the venture to build the United New Village (1961–1964), which contained 608 two-bedroom flats and occupied an area of approximately 2.9 hectares. ³⁷ It became so popular that the development site was repeatedly enlarged, and the last building did not go up until 1964. After this successful development, Su left his job and in 1966 went on to his second project, the 1,460-unit United Second Village, ³⁸ which was the first apartment cluster to be built in the planned Min Sheng New Community and soon became the model for subsequent ones (Figures 5 and 6).

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Figure 5.

Typical front elevation of United Second Village (1966–1973), showing stairway enclosures combining glass curtain walls and decorative concrete blocks.

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Figure 6.

A newly completed row of the United Second Village in 1970.

The development of the Min Sheng New Community (1965), a 110-hectare parcel of land located far from downtown Taipei, followed strong recommendations by U.N. foreign advisors. The purpose of the development was to build a model community of suitable, modern, high-density housing. The advisors urged the planning of new communities to accommodate urban expansion and replace the ongoing random sprawl of squatter houses on empty land. Although the Min Sheng New Community plan had the wholehearted support of mayor Henry Yu-Shu Kao (a technocrat who had studied in the United States on a U.S. aid scholarship ³⁹ ), the city council members were reluctant to grant approval. They thought that multifamily and multistory dwellings were too extravagant to be built with public funds and would not be accepted by the Taiwanese. ⁴⁰ Consequently, the plan was delayed for years.

Despite this administrative fiasco, Su, the developer, played an important role in bringing the plan to fruition. Not only did he manage to arrange a face-to-face encounter with the normally inaccessible provincial governor and persuade him to implement the project, he also brought in funding from U.S. aid. ⁴¹ To qualify for U.S. aid, in principle both planning and building design had to comply with U.S. Federal Housing Administration standards for mid-income apartment housing, yet Su managed to negotiate a lowering of standards, such as floor area per unit and public facilities. He also enlisted the support of a local architect who had trained in the United States on a U.S. aid scholarship. ⁴²

The upshot of these negotiations was that the Min Sheng New Community development was both affordable for the people and profitable for the developers. Today, the Min Sheng Community is still legendary in the real estate market and the most enviable example of a residential district in the so-called American style, even though it bears little resemblance to any actually existing neighborhoods in the United States. It was the context of modern planning and the concept of modern housing that made this estate a symbol of American living in Taipei. At the same time, the many conflicts and eventual compromises of the planning process made the Min Sheng Community a very non-American American neighborhood. ⁴³

The architect of the United New Village and the United Second Village was Haigo T. H. Shen (Honorary FAIA). Like Su, Shen was influenced by the United States through his professional experience. He received his architectural training at St. John’s University in Shanghai, which was notable for having the very first Bauhaus-based architectural curriculum in China. ⁴⁴ In 1949, Shen came to Taiwan as an employee of a major Chinese construction company for military projects associated with the U.S. ⁴⁵ His fluency in English enabled him to move on to work at the Military Assistance and Advisory Group (a division of U.S. aid set up after the Korean War) between 1952 and 1962, and the connections he made there would later bring lucrative business to his own practice. ⁴⁶

Shen’s experience working with U.S. personnel greatly affected him. His firm, Haigo Shen & Partners, Architects & Engineers, soon gained a reputation for its impeccable application of the Architectural Graphic Standards and for its corporate management system. The firm’s deliberate Americanization might explain its otherwise inexplicable inclination to use nondecorative concrete masonry blocks (CMUs) for some interior partitions of the United New Village. In Taiwan, CMUs were only used in U.S.-affiliated buildings, including the American Institute in Taiwan, which was built before 1954. As Taiwanese construction workers were unfamiliar with CMUs, and the blocks could be unsuitable to the earthquake-prone environment, water leaks frequently occurred. Moreover, the CMU walls of the Taipei walkups were all plastered and painted over, which eliminated their cost-effectiveness. Just a few years later, the firm ceased using CMUs in United Second Village interiors. ⁴⁷

Policy analyst Neil H. Jacoby summarizes the complicated and ubiquitous influence of U.S. aid in postwar Taiwan. ⁴⁸ U.S.-sponsored projects were interrelated and some critical impacts were not seen immediately—urban housing and walkup apartments were no exception—however, it would be unfair to claim that the United States made no contribution to Taiwan’s modern housing. The U.S.-influenced professionals acted like mediators between local tastes and imported architectural forms. Further, U.S. aid contributed, both directly and indirectly, to the establishing of models showing how modern apartment buildings should be built, that is, the templates on Design Drawings for Affordable Housing and the earliest walkup villages.

Reading Local Building Culture through the Façade

Market housing dominated housing provision in Taiwan, and this factor of the building culture facilitated the process of localization, which turned the façades into decorative and desirable surfaces and created the abiding “look” of Taipei walkups. In dramatic contrast to the socially ambitious modernist walkups, most Taipei walkups were built by rent-seeking developers, and even walkups originally constructed for public housing were mostly sold on the market after a few years. ⁴⁹ This emerging housing market was fueled by postwar population growth consisting of war immigrants, baby boomers, and urban-rural migrants. ⁵⁰ And the construction of Taipei walkups took place on an unanticipated scale. Although it is impossible to state categorically that the Taipei walkup was a major cause in the incipient boom in housing commodification, it is difficult to believe this distinct housing type—with its ease of reproduction, its efficiency, and its adaptability ⁵¹ —did not play a major role.

How did this culture of private housing production shape the look of Taipei walkups? On the one hand, the Taipei walkup apartment building is a vernacular transformation of a modernist housing form; on the other hand, as a commodity, it is a by-product of the social activities of developers, architects, and buyers. This ambiguity—of being at once a commodity and a manifesto for modernism—can be seen in the buildings’ façades. The façades of typical modernist housing were designed with discreet utilitarian esthetics to express the spirit of both die neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”) and volkswohnung (“people’s dwelling”), whereas the façades of the majority of Taipei walkups were designed with a very different orientation and level of design innovation. Neither a faithful example of modernism nor a critical reflection on regionalism, the façades comprised collages with culturally preferred colors, textured materials, and symbolic decorations.

In actual fact, the earliest Taipei walkups built by the pioneering architect were more bare and “pure” in their curtain walls and plain concrete finish—it was only in subsequent, derivative projects that developers and architects started to apply these vernacular tune-ups onto facades. These surface materials were already in use locally and had their own histories and cultural associations; in other words, they were separate entities from the architectural type. It was through the transformation of façades—a process I am referring to as appliqué—that architectural materials and type were juxtaposed and created a new building form—the Taipei walkup.

The appliqué feature of the façades can be seen most clearly in three types of modification: decorative concrete masonry blocks, pebble wash finish, and mosaic tiles. In Taipei walkups, precast decorative concrete blocks often fenestrated the central staircase, which was a prominent compositional element in this building type. Such blocks had previously been used in the parapets and garden walls of low-rise houses in Taiwan as early as the 1950s and were very similar to, though slightly smaller than, the decorative CMUs used in the United States. ⁵² Their esthetic appeal was amplified by their use by famous architects such as modernist-turned-populist Edward Durell Stone, ⁵³ and they were also a feature of midcentury modern architecture in the United States. ⁵⁴ The link between the United States and the use of this particular material in Taiwan requires further study, but early in 1962 the government-issued Design Drawings for Affordable Housing had already showcased these blocks as the typical fenestration for stairways in walkups (Figure 3). ⁵⁵

But the central staircases of the earliest Taipei walkups were enclosed with curtain walls, as was often the case with modernist walkups (Figure 7, left). ⁵⁶ A few years later, the same architect incorporated decorative concrete blocks into the curtain walls (Figure 5, Figure 6, and Figure 7, center). Around the same time, blocks were still being used in parapets, as could often be seen in older houses (Figure 7, right). ⁵⁷ In later Taipei walkups, decorative screens of concrete blocks prevailed as the typical fenestration on staircases (Figure 8).

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Figure 7.

Staircase enclosures and the usage of decorative concrete blocks in three early Taipei walkups. Left: United New Village, curtain walls only (1961). Center: United Second Village, curtain walls combining blocks (1966). Right: Kuang-Wu New Village, with blocks forming balcony parapets (1962).

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Figure 8.

Anonymous Taipei walkups with enclosed staircases featuring concrete blocks with various patterns: linked ancient coins, double squares, and plum flowers (left: 1966; center: 1968; right: 1984).

Clearly, when they copied the housing type, developers and architects did not copy the “more original” fenestration, that is, the more modern-looking curtain wall. Instead, they turned to decorative concrete blocks, which were not only cheaper than glass but also provided better round-the-clock theft-proofing and ventilation. ⁵⁸ These screening blocks were also a cheaper and more decorative version of the modernist brise-soleil.

Developers and architects did not care much about modernist doctrine and were principally drawn to this common material for its availability, variety, and low cost. The decorativeness of the blocks turned out to be an additional advantage as the imagery could encourage buyers to identify with the new type of dwelling. Many of the patterns of these masonry units evoked the cultural symbols on ceramic blocks (Figure 9). Even so, the design and production of decorative concrete blocks were arguably international, as is proved by the many examples that exist worldwide.

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Figure 9.

Green-glazed ceramic blocks in the “persimmon pedicel” pattern in a traditional Taiwanese dwelling (1870s).

The second façade feature was the pebble wash finish, a material of concrete aggregate that mimicked natural gray stone. The architects of the Taipei walkup conceived the pebble wash finish very differently from the way some Brutalist architects were using aggregated concrete at around the same time. Because of its soft texture, its smooth appearance from a distance, and its characteristically weathered look, pebble wash finish was a muted and modest background material. The pebble wash finish also meant that later Taipei walkups aged better than earlier ones in their plain concrete finish.

The pebble wash finish dates back to the early twentieth century, when it was introduced by the Japanese to Taiwan. Though a laborious way to mimic real stone, pebble wash helped convey the grandeur of the colonial palazzi. ⁵⁹ The technique and its use survived the end of Japanese colonization, and its association with institutional colonial architecture gave the pebble wash finish its classic allure during the age of midcentury modernism.

With pebble wash supplying the background, developers strove to create eye-catching visual effects with the use of colorful mosaic tiles, the third feature of the Taipei walkup façade. According to one developer, this was a combination of fashion and antiquity: the mosaic was flashy, and the pebble wash classic. ⁶⁰ This intriguing comment could be seen as an inversion of Western tastes for which mosaic tiles usually recall ancient civilization and aggregated concrete is seen as part of modern architectural expression.

The “flashy” mosaic tiles have a different story from that of the pebble wash finish. In the volumetric modern forms of Taipei walkups, mosaic served to differentiate the various volumes: eaves, window openings, balconies, planting pots, and so on (Figure 1, above). Sometimes, the project title or the name of the developer would be marked on the elevation in mosaic (Figure 10). On one hand, this was linked to the Taiwanese tradition of naming buildings and places with calligraphy, which originated in eighteenth-century Chinese garden design and was a way to evoke a certain “sense of place” through literary association and poetic representation. On the other hand, it participated in the contemporary global trend to commercialize elevations. The names of big companies on the elevations of Taipei walkups signaled the booming commodification of housing that accompanied this first type of multifamily housing.

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Figure 10.

Names of companies and building projects in cut mosaics.

As the walkup type was easy to reproduce, replicated façades were very common. One mosaic pattern in particular is notable: the Ambassador pattern. The Ambassador Hotel Taipei was built in 1964 in a joint venture between a Japanese travel company and investors from the ranks of the Taiwanese elite and was the most memorable 1960s building to incorporate mosaic (Figure 11). The façade’s intricately designed mosaics of olive green, brown, and ivory were a great success with both architectural professionals and the general public. ⁶¹ From afar, the pattern was intriguing; on close inspection, it was easily understood. Moreover, the colors seemed to change with the light. The fact that an inexpensive material could achieve such an effect on a luxurious international hotel inspired developers and architects to utilize the colorful potential of mosaic. ⁶²

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Figure 11.

Mosaic patterns on the Ambassador Hotel Taipei and its derivatives.

Recently, the Japanese architect Jun Aoki wanted to use mosaic tiles on a building he was constructing in Taiwan because he saw a kind of “aura” in these old buildings with their mosaic tiles, but Aoki’s Taiwanese colleagues entreated him to change his mind as they considered the tiny tiles to be a mark of inferiority. ⁶³ In any case, thanks to their low cost, variety, and durability, mosaic tiles dominated the façades of a generation of Taipei walkups.

The tactile and locally familiar decorative concrete blocks, pebble wash finish, and mosaics provided cultural references that could reconcile people to the foreign form of modern walkups whose “sterility” contrasted strongly with the perceived “organic” nature of traditional houses. In this sense, the actions of developers and architects served as a form of architectural and social opposition—but not direct confrontation—to international style and elite taste. ⁶⁴ Thus, to understand the meaning of these appliqués, and their “vernacular” deviation from the original modernist type, we must understand the society in which they were situated.

Situating the Modern Vernacular: The Social Fabric of the Taipei Walkups

As may be expected, the social network of the building culture expanded and changed when demand for walkup apartment buildings increased. Two important architectural and social consequences accompanied this evolution of the building culture.

First, the “vernacular” materials had to be modernized to a certain degree before they could be used in Taipei walkups; for example, decorative concrete blocks required relatively advanced precasting techniques. The blocks could be seen as a modernized representation of an iconographical building tradition, and their use was also in line with the then government campaign of using prefabrication to modernize housing. ⁶⁵ The origin of the pebble wash finish lay in the imitative re-creation of Western monolithic buildings that contributed to the modernization of the construction system in Japan. Thus, for Taiwan, the pebble wash finish was a truly modern invention that became embedded in the local building culture through Japanese colonization. Finally, meeting the demand for large quantity, high quality, and color variation in mosaic tiles required new developments in glazing, pressing, cutting, and firing. Moreover, the mass production of all these materials and housing units were themselves a modern phenomenon that brought with it new systems of management and regulation.

The second consequence relates to the high demand for housing that made it a seller’s market. On one hand, many new buyers were confined by extremely limited rental options and were motivated to seek a place to call home by the traditional preference for home ownership. ⁶⁶ On the other hand, although property development was still a new profession, developers had far more information about housing production and greater resources than buyers.

Since the new housing type was a market success from its inception, developers became comfortable with its conventions and enjoyed the absence of pressure for innovation. To them, modernism was merely an advertising slogan to make their buildings a symbol of “progressive” society, in line with the public sector’s promotional drawings and imported advices. Equally, the concept of regionalism was ignored. ⁶⁷ What concerned developers most were, first, a profitable construction model, and, second, a commercially tested type with which consumers were not yet bored. In the end, the enormous quantity of walkup apartments being built for sale was a telling confirmation of U.S. consultant Astrid Monson’s 1968 warning that, without density control or management, all land was susceptible to speculation. ⁶⁸

By their habitual use of certain materials, their esthetic preferences, and their ways of reproducing buildings, the robust participants of the “vernacular” building culture worked to create the first multistory, multifamily residences in Taiwan. Although their specific local character came at the cost of defying the formal essence and social meaning of their typological origin, walkups became the architectural solution for the housing of millions in Taipei, and the building culture in which they were constructed and transformed was also touched by modernization.

Conclusion

This paper reassesses the modern and the vernacular by looking at how the two interacted in the U.S.-backed East Asian state of Taiwan. In the first part, we outlined how a new type of housing was introduced to Taiwan through various routes of U.S. influence during the Cold War. We then took the use of appliqués on modernist buildings (vernacular materials on the façades of Taipei walkups) as an example of local building culture. Moving beyond a simple interpretation of the “form-borrowing” process, we showed how the building culture played an equally important role in shaping the “modern vernacular” form of housing architecture and also explored aspects of modernization within the vernacular production of façade materials and mass housing.

The Taipei walkup can be seen as both a modern symbol of urban living that combines vernacular motifs and a vernacular work of architecture based on a modern form. In contrast to those who argue that the modern is a kind of transformed vernacular, ⁶⁹ this study shows that the vernacular should not be reduced to the old, the indigenous, or the traditional but should be seen more as a system of local conventions that interacts with and transforms cultural imports. By the same token, what appears to be modern is in fact a reflection of both vernacular and modern conditions.

If we cling to the modern–vernacular dichotomy, the Taipei walkup remains a challenging case, not only because of its façade materials and other transformations but also because of the historical and social perceptions that surround these buildings. ⁷⁰ Instead, the Taipei walkup should be regarded as part of the modernization process in which the Japanese colonial legacy and U.S. political and cultural presence played significant roles. The Taipei walkup is not merely a transplanted modernist type covered with vernacular appliqués, but rather a crystallization of the long-term and continuing evolution of building production.

The formation of the Taipei walkup echoes Kenneth Frampton’s notion that

the vernacular cannot even be addressed today without subsuming it under the aesthetic strategy of modernism. . . . [W]ithin the scope of the rationalized technology that is currently at our disposal, the process of building remains stubbornly anachronistic in character . . . the insertion of a building into its site remains as archaic as ever it was. ⁷¹

By exploring such an “archaic” process, this article traced the walkup’s socioarchitectural origin in Taiwan and its transformation from a global type to a local “norm,” and from a modern ideal to a vernacular scene, embedded tightly in an evolving building culture and a society impacted by the United States.