Former home for the US Ambassador is now a window on the creative movie industry

It is a place that serves as a living testament and witness to many significant milestones in the history of the Taiwan-US relationship, a building “where important people of both sides have joined together to discuss how to defend Taiwan,” said President Ma Ying-jeou, who made the comment during his capacity as mayor of Taipei.

It is a structure where former US President Richard Nixon stayed for a few nights during his visit to Taiwan in 1964 when he was Vice-president.
 
It also served as home to a total of five ambassadors until the severing of diplomatic ties between the US and Taiwan in 1979, when the last US Ambassador Leonard Unger departed back to America and left the house empty and deserted for nearly 20 years.
 
Now the house has undergone a complete rebirth, sloughing off its heavy political history and turning itself into a film-oriented complex, to serve as an interactive window for cross-cultural exchanges in the creative industry.

It is the Taipei Film House, a white, two-story building located in the heart of Taipei’s hustling and bustling downtown area on Zhongshan North Road.

It’s easy to somehow overlook the building, since it lies hidden behind a line of bushy trees at the roadside. But if you take a closer look, you’ll find the showy white color of a colonial residence in the American South. 

Ancient history

Built around 1925 during the Japanese colonial period, the structure first served for a time as the American consulate.

“It is interesting to note that this two-story house built in an American colonial style of architecture was designed by Japanese architects, and not by Americans,” says Venus Chen, Marketing and PR Manager of the Taipei Film House.

Chen adds that during that period many Japanese studied architecture in America and European countries, so that when they returned to Japan or to one of Japan’s colonies, they started designing many buildings in Western styles.

“The two-story building was designed as a classic Southern-style Manor building with a square floor plan, simple Grecian columns and an elegant reception hall.”

In its early phase the building served as the US Consulate in Taiwan during the Japanese Colonial Period, but after the beginning of the Second World War all diplomatic affairs between Japan and US were terminated and the office was closed down for several years.

In 1949 the Republic of China Government moved to Taiwan. A year later, the US government reestablished its consulate in Taipei, and the building was used as the office of the US Navy in Taiwan.

Then in 1953 US Ambassador Karl L. Rankin (1953-1957) chose this site standing within a majestic retinue of trees as his official residence.

Following him, ambassadors Everett R. Drumright (1958-1962), Ian G. Kirk (1962-1963), Jerauld Wright (1963-1965), Walter P. McConaughy (1966-1974), and Leonard Unger (1974-1978) also resided here. 

All resident US ambassadors had an abiding interest in Taipei’s culture and arts, hosting many leading arts figures at the residence—a living testament to the Taiwan-US relationship as well as Taipei’s cultural history.

With the departure of Ambassador Unger, who took away not only all documents but also the furniture inside the building, the building was left abandoned for 18 years, literally becoming desolated and somewhat like a haunted house where no one dared pay a visit. 

Awakened from a Long Sleep

In 1997 the Ministry of the Interior “rediscovered” the once-important building, designating it as a Class Three Historical Site because of its cultural and political significance. Then, with funding from the TSMC Education and Culture Foundation (台積電文教基金會) and backed by the Council for Cultural Affairs, the building underwent a large-scale renovation.

During that period, then Cultural Affairs Director of Taipei Lung Ying-tai, who is also a celebrated essayist and cultural critic, decided to make use of the building to serve as a location and venue for promoting film culture.

Consequently the former US Ambassador’s Residence was renamed SPOT-Taipei Film House and is now run by the Taiwan Film and Culture Association (台灣電影文化協會), with internationally acclaimed director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) as its president.
“At the time we first began the renovation project in 1997, the whole building was like a bleak house. The roofs and walls of the building were all covered with moss and lichen,” Chen said.

After spending a total of NT$60 million over a five-year time span on renovation, the site was given a comprehensive facelift, granting it a new life of recaptured glory as the Taipei Film House when it opened to the general public for the first time in November 2002.

A new birth 

After renovation, the building now houses an exhibition gallery, a coffee shop, a restaurant and SPOT Design, a place that features a large collection of film-related materials, as well as many cultural creativity products from around the world. There is also a multi-media conference room that can be used for seminars and workshops, providing filmmakers and artists a venue for innovative exchanges. But most importantly, the house now has the SPOT Cinema, with a total of 88 seats. The theater was created by reconstructing the building where the garage for the US ambassador and generators were located, Chen said.

Now the cinema screens movies scrupulously selected by members of the Taiwan Film and Culture Association from all over the world, holding six screenings daily between 12 am and 12 pm.

“The films shown here are fine films featuring creative approaches and cultural diversity. The effort is to enhance independent thinking towards a new viewing experience and vision. It is also meant to be artistically distinguished from mainstream Hollywood films,” Chen added.

In contrast to other ordinary theaters, the Taipei Film House not only provides the finest movies with more cultural diversity, it also creates a channel for filmmakers and movie lovers to exchange ideas, and to generate various possible ways of thinking through its unique architecture and environment.

Taipei Film House is in its seventh year now, and Chen disclosed that during the first few years they faced some financial difficulties as the venue itself is free-entry.

The main source of income comes from movie tickets and the Exhibition Gallery, and the multi-media conference room can be rented for events.

“You can even rent the whole building as well as the movie theater,” Chen noted.

Some people have rented the cinema for marriage proposals, while there have even been weddings in the Taipei Film House, she added.

Luckily, the Film House has continued to win wide acceptance among both young and older movie lovers, with more than 1,300 people joining as members of the house while racking up more than 30,000 visitors monthly.

In 2008, the revenues and expenditures of running the Taipei Film House were finally balanced, Chen noted.

Its wide popularity even has won attention from foreign media. In a travel article published by the New York Times published March 2, 2008, entitled “36 Hours in Taipei, Taiwan,” it specifically pointed out that the Taipei Film House is a must-visit for cinema lovers as it is “one of the most atmospheric buildings in Taipei, redolent of colonial life in the tropics, with lush grounds that shield the villa from the street.”

Aside from just showing the movies, Chen said that the Film House regularly holds Film Festivals of all kinds, and workshops which allow movie lovers to interact with directors and explore their creative insights. Meanwhile, filmmakers can also get feedback from the audiences' point of view.

Their hard work apparently has borne fruit. One incident Chen recalled shows clearly how movies are not just about movies, but are much more to the Taiwanese.

The earliest film festival of the Taipei Film House, Chen recalled, featured Japanese master Yasujirō Ozu.

One day a man took his mother, who was a big fan of Ozu, to the festival. Several weeks later, the man returned to the theater with a photo he had taken with his mother in front of Taipei Film House. He expressed his gratitude to Chen for showing Ozo's films.

"Watching Ozo's film at Spot was one of the happiest moments in my life," the son quoted his mother as saying. These were the very last few words his mother uttered before she passed away.

“It was a really touching moment that makes us feel it is worth every effort that we make,” Chen said.

For those who love movies, then, Chen said the Taipei Film House will continue to combine the intrinsic value of a historical site with the cultural value of art films, to provide filmmakers and artists a venue for innovative exchanges.