Taipei Intelligence Hill

Unlearning reverence. Rewriting memory.

This project reimagines Taipei’s most iconic authoritarian monument—the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall—as a new civic library park: a landscape of knowledge, memory, and democratic reflection.

Instead of demolishing the past, we chose to metabolize it. The original ceremonial axis is fractured and reoriented—from a vertical hierarchy of power into a horizontal terrain of public participation. The memorial statue is relocated, not erased—inviting optional reflection rather than compulsory worship.

Architecture becomes landscape, and the hill becomes a vessel. Beneath its gentle slope, reading rooms, immersive theaters, and discussion halls are nested, transforming the original pedestal of dominance into a democratic commons. The grand staircase no longer ascends to authority—it rises toward literacy.

At its core, the “Intelligence Hill” is a spatial proposal for cultural healing: a place where collective memory is not overwritten, but rewritten—through reading, dialogue, and gathering. Here, history is not a static monument but an evolving interface between architecture and society.

By weaving libraries, plazas, and green public zones into the existing urban grain, the project transforms a symbol of centralized power into a decentralized park of civic intelligence—shifting Taipei’s capital center from command to conversation.

As the capital city, Taipei City has the highest population density in Taiwan, and the per capita living area is almost the lowest in Taiwan. Despite this, crowds continue to pour into Taipei City. Such a result shows that the living space of Taipei residents is continuously encroached upon. The proposal aims to provide all ages with reading, socializing, exercising, or just taking a rest, through this urban sofa project and to improve the quality of life of Taipei residents, while weakening the symbol of power and freeing up space back into the masses.

Therefore, we take the National Library as the starting point, create a children’s library across the Dongmen and a new plaza (which will be directly connected to the library), transform the existing archway, and redesign the facades of the two halls. The symbol of power (staircase) will be completely removed, just leave one side of Daxiao Gate connected to the community. We created a sunken square that reversed the existing axis on the original worship path and moved away the bronze statue as a memorial rather than a symbol of power to sit side by side with the people in the square. The square becomes a new core for social, performance, and other activities that will all spread out from this center. Thinking and reflection on history begin to flow around the square and let the park integrate democracy, nature, and reading.We propose the concept of “Sofa and Screen” for configuration strategy. The Dazhong Gate side nears more institutions and the public and revitalizes the place by adding shopping malls, offices, sunken food courts, art galleries, and also a theater (the site was planned as a commercial and cultural core before Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall).

The side of Daxiao Gate confronts the community on the south and the girls’ high school on the east. We extend the functionality of the library and place the hydrology as a soft boundary. We design a gentle hillside. The first floor is the plaza and exhibition space adjacent to the Nanmen Market, providing more flexible usage. The second floor is equipped with a reading and discussion area, and the third floor is a place for viewing and taking a rest with outdoor seating and green belts on each floor. The end of the hillside will be connected to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, and the body of the hall will be presented with the concept of burying in Nature to create an activity belt that stretches 450 meters. The volume on the north side becomes the end view of the hillside, the curtain will reflect the nature and activities that happen on the hillside, and at the same time, there will be more abundant functions such as projection when holding events.

We have imagined the public space in the post-epidemic era, and a single shared space can no longer satisfy our lives. We expect to break up the vast and single public nature of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall past and create public spaces of different scales. That is the reason why we focus on sorting out the relationship between educational facilities, monuments, and communities. It is hoped that the park can become the hub of the city in the near future. The placement of different functions can let the masses gather and interact with each other, get along with nature, respond to the needs of more diverse activities in the city, and create a new image of the heart of the capital.