HSG-Vortrag von Dr. Liza Wing Man Kam: Staying righteous or/and heritagizing colonial architecture: Taiwan’s Taoyuan Shinto Shrine as a contested playground

1. Dezember 2025, von AAI Webmaster

Foto: L. W. M. Kam

Die Abteilung für Sprache und Kultur Chinas und die Hamburger Sinologische Gesellschaft laden zu einem Vortrag von Frau Dr. Liza Wing Man Kam (Universität Wien) ein. Der Vortrag wird am Montag, 1.12.25, um 18 Uhr in Raum 123 am AAI stattfinden.

Staying righteous or/and heritagizing colonial architecture: Taiwan’s Taoyuan Shinto Shrine as a contested playground

Japanese colonialism and the postcoloniality in Taiwan are sufficiently particular and peculiar. The peculiarity is reflected in the ways in which colonial architecture and their legacy exist, transform and endure in the postcolonial era.
This lecture focuses on the story of Taiwan’s Toen Jinja, or Showa 13 – also known as Taoyuan Martyrs’ Shrine and Cultural Park since 1948. Currently enshrining the deceased ‘national heroes’ who fought against various enemies (including the Japanese) in the establishment of the Republic of China before and since 1911, the building complex is the best preserved example of Shinto Shrine architecture outside Japan to date. Originally uilt to commemorate the sacrificed souls who fought in the Pacific War, the shrine is but now financially sustained by its cultural legacy gained during the Japanese colonial era. This lecture investigates the controversies surrounding the continual productions of its spatial reality, from the birth of the shrine’s architecture to the present day. I argue that colonial architecture slowly bears witness to the emergence of a bottom-up postcolonialism. The tangential forms of existence at each key moment display the tug of war between powers and knowledge, or often the lack thereof, especially experienced by civilians.