Taipei City Hall

Taipei City Hall, the seat of Taipei City government, is located at Xinyi Special District, Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan.

Architecture
Taipei City Hall is a 12-story building, with two stories below ground. It is 54.42 m tall and has a floor area of 196,684.59 m2, capable of accommodating 6,000 employees. The building also often houses exhibitions, performances, speeches, and other public events.

From above, the building has a “double ten” shape (十十), where ten has the shape of a cross in written Chinese (十). The architects chose this shape to get around informal height restrictions and to offer sunlight and good air circulation. It is also a reference to the National Day of the Republic of China, which is October 10, also known as “Double Ten Day.”

History




Taipei city government was first established in 1920 during Japanese rule. It was initially housed in buildings belonging to Huashan Elementary School. To handle the city's growth, a new city hall was opened in 1940 on the same site. It was three- to four-stories tall and built in a modernist style.

When Taiwan was taken over by the Republic of China in 1945, Taipei's city hall was moved to the former campus of Jian Cheng Elementary School. (The old city hall building eventually became the Executive Yuan building.) As Taipei grew, its city hall could only accommodate around 1,000 employees, and many other units were scattered in various rented offices. To address this problem, a new city hall was opened in 1994 in the Xinyi District. The old city hall building became the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei and the campus of Jian Cheng Junior High School.