Young Taiwanese Architectural Design Exhibition at TECO-NY

Over 100 guests attended the opening of the Young Taiwanese Architectural Designer Exhibition on Sunday, October 19, 2014. The exhibition, titled “Transplant”, was hosted by the Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York. It featured designs by 27 students from Taiwan currently studying in the New York area alluding to their learning and development in new areas while being far from their home in Taiwan.

In his welcome remarks, the TECO-NY director, Paul Chang pointed out that this exhibition was the first of its kind, and that it was very exciting for Taiwanese students to have this platform to showcase their talent. The opening reception featured a seminar with a keynote address by a well-known architect Kris Yao, who then spoke about his experience designing the Water-Moon Monastery in Taipei. Kris was followed by a panel discussion led by Dr. Michael Speaks, Dean of the School of Architecture at Syracuse University, and including Jimenez Lai, a California-based Taiwanese-American architect, and winner of the 2013 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects, and Rosalyne Shieh, a founding partner at Schaum/Shieh, an architectural firm.

Jimenez and Rosalyn each shared their experiences as Taiwanese-Americans in the world of architecture, and confronting their dual identities of being American and Taiwanese. Both had struggled with how to define their Taiwanese identity. The panel discussion was followed by a lively Q&A session.

The exhibition was originally scheduled to run for just two weeks, but it was extended and ran from October 19 to November 15, due to the tremendous positive response it received. The students also developed a companion website: www.tyadenyc.org