National Taiwan Museum

In front of you stands Taiwan's oldest museum, with its Doric portico and its dome, as if a building from Athens or Washington had wandered off to Asia. That was the point: when it was completed in 1915, the Japanese government wanted Taipei to look like a modern capital.

1From Qing city to Japanese city

Not long before, there were no Greek columns here. In 1875 the Qing dynasty created Taipei Prefecture, and in 1884 it finished the city wall, with five gates. Once Taiwan became a province, Governor Liu Mingchuan built a large temple to Mazu, the protector of seafarers, on this very plot. In 1895, after the war between China and Japan, the island passed to Japan, and in 1911 a typhoon badly damaged the temple, which was pulled down the following year.

In its place rose a memorial hall honouring two figures of the colonial government: Governor-General Kodama Gentarō and his chief of civil administration, Gotō Shinpei. It was designed by Nomura Ichirō and Araki Eiichi, and as soon as it was finished it became home to the museum, founded in 1908 to display the island's nature, products and peoples.

From the museum steps, Guanqian Road runs in a straight line to the station: a piece of urban stagecraft designed to impress travellers arriving by train.

Today the museum is still devoted to Taiwan's natural history and cultures, including its Indigenous peoples.

2What to look for

• The portico, with its Doric columns and decorated pediment.
• The dome, best seen from the pavement opposite.
• The view down Guanqian Road, aligned with the building.