Saving Wuyun Villa: Protecting a Century-Old Traditional House Is Urgent
Lead image/ Wu Jialing Grandpa Lin Lu, owner of Wuyun Villa, explains the history of the stone old house and the nearby hillside farmland.
Hello, friends of NewsMarket. There is one matter we sincerely ask for your help with.
Over the past few years, I have fought shoulder to shoulder with you all at gatherings large and small against land expropriation, in defense of ancestral homes and for farmland. Yet I never imagined that this year (2012) it would be our family's ancestral home, "Wuyun Villa," that was slated for expropriation, that it would be my grandfather who lost his vegetable garden, and that our family's crops would lose their land.
My grandfather (Lin Lu, 93 years old) has a stone old house and about two fen (approx. 0.2 hectare) of hillside farmland on Yangmingshan. According to him, the "old ancestor" (my grandfather's grandfather) walked daily during the Qing dynasty along the "Yulu Ancient Trail" in the Yangmingshan area, carrying fish on a shoulder pole back and forth between Jinshan and Shilin. By selling fresh seafood from the North Coast to the city, he painstakingly saved money to buy land and build a house. Once they had farmland, my grandfather made a living growing "Caoshan tankan" mandarin oranges.
Now that my grandfather is old, he no longer grows oranges, but he cannot sit idle. The orange grove has been transformed into an organic vegetable plot, interplanted with various seasonal vegetables and fruits, wild medicinal herbs, bamboo shoots and saplings, coexisting harmoniously with the natural ecology of Yangmingshan. Later this place became a site of free creation for students of the Fine Arts Department of Chinese Culture University, who named the old house "Wuyun Villa" and created freely amid the mountain wilds.
To be frank, in the era of rapid economic growth, my grandfather once thought about rebuilding the old house and renovating it into the popular Taiwanese rural-style townhouse. Perhaps protected by the spirit of the mountain wilds, it has miraculously been preserved to this day. My grandfather has also given up the idea of rebuilding, and the family decided to keep the traditional old house.
Unexpectedly, at the end of June last year, the Taipei City Government announced a comprehensive review plan for Shilin District, intending to widen the road and demolish houses on the hillside, without notifying my grandfather or family at all. In October, while reading other materials, I accidentally discovered this, but procedurally the opportunity for the public to make public statements and express opinions at the Urban Planning Commission had already passed, and I could only provide written materials for the Commission's reference.
Whether the road will be widened is still under review by the Urban Planning Commission, and nothing is final yet. After the Lunar New Year, the Commission's ad hoc committee members are expected to go up the mountain for a site inspection, so I have first organized the materials and invite everyone to jointly sign in support, hoping to stop this unnecessary development road, to keep the farmland and old house as the realization of the ideal of "no separation between body and soil," and perhaps in the future there may be a chance to use it as a gathering place and base for farming-method experiments for friends in the greater Taipei area who care about agriculture and land. Here I sincerely ask everyone to sign in support of preserving Wuyun Villa and refusing to recklessly open roads on the hillside. Thank you!
Respectfully, Lin Lexin
[Save Wuyun Villa]The petition statement and website for "Guard the century-old old house, refuse Yangmingshan No. 15 Road", please see below
Wuyun Villa is located on the hillside of Huagang Mountain near Chinese Culture University on Yangmingshan, where the family of owner Grandpa Lin Lu has lived for generations. In the 29th year of the Republic of China (1940), craftsmen from Tamsui were invited to renovate the original adobe house into a stone house.
This kind of stone house was once common in Tamsui, Sanzhi, Shimen, Maacao and the greater Yangmingshan area of northern Taiwan. Unfortunately, in the course of urban development, stone houses are disappearing faster and faster, and they are well worth preserving.
Right image/ Grandma and the grandchildren living and working in peace here, photographed around the 1970s.
Image/ Li Zhenglang, "Looking Up at Wuyun" oil painting series Wuyun's tranquil environment attracted students from the Fine Arts Department and the Literature Department of Chinese Culture University to gather and create.
These highly talented students, who shone brilliantly in the art world, named this place "Wuyun Villa," and it once had the reputation of being the "cradle of modern art in Taipei."
[Save Wuyun Villa]"Guard the century-old old house, refuse Yangmingshan No. 15 Road" petition statement
About Wuyun...
Behind the luxury housing district of Yangmingshan, at the edge of the bustling Chinese Culture University, there is a quiet stone old house. This is the ancestral home where 93-year-old farmer Lin Lu has lived for generations; it is the "cradle of modern art - Wuyun Villa" in the words of students of the Fine Arts Department of Chinese Culture University, and students who lingered here in their youth even opened a restaurant called "Wuyun" in the Shida and Gongguan commercial districts to commemorate that time; it is at the same time a steep hillside plot only 0.5 km from the site of the landslide disaster during Typhoon Nari, and a field where tankan mandarin trees, old mountain tea, green bamboo shoots and daylilies grow naturally and are harvested by season.
Wuyun Villa is not an old house existing in isolation on Yangmingshan. It is built of andesite produced locally on Yangmingshan, constructed by the famous northern Taiwan folk-house craftsman lineage - the Li master craftsmen of Yanlou, Tamsui - and once had many similar brothers and sisters in the northern mountain areas. Today these old houses and traditional three-sided courtyards have mostly been demolished and rebuilt one by one along with economic development.
A blind-alley little road to be opened on the hillside, the old house to be cut through and demolished
In last year's (the 100th year of the Republic of China, 2011) comprehensive review of the Taipei City urban plan, there is a development and widening project named "Yangmingshan No. 15 Road," extending from the Jingshan Road intersection on Yangmingshan, cutting directly through the "Wuyun Villa" old house, with the road turning sharply down the steep slope toward Jianye Road.
As mentioned at the outset, Wuyun Villa not only has cultural and historical value, it is also only 0.5 km from the site of the landslide during Typhoon Nari. And a 94th-year (2005) official document of the Taipei City Public Works Department also acknowledges that the slope here is too steep, that after excavation the retaining wall could reach 14 m high (about 5 stories), and that the massive cut-and-fill earthwork would affect the soil and water conservation of this hillside. Moreover, this comprehensive review of the Taipei City urban plan even uses the fact that the slope of Huagang Mountain is greater than 30% as grounds to re-designate the area's agricultural zone as a "protection zone," all of which confirms that this place is simply unsuitable for newly opening or widening a road.
From the standpoint of traffic necessity, this road is even more absurd. As everyone knows, the holiday traffic surge on Yangmingshan is a structural problem, by no means solvable by opening one tiny alternative road. What is more, opening an alternative road will only attract more traffic, as has been learned from the experience of many tourist areas. Does Taipei really want to repeat this mistake?
Therefore we launch the petition "Save Wuyun Villa, guard the century-old old house." We hope to let Wuyun Villa continue to accompany Grandpa Lin Lu and to accompany us in coming to know this land. After this year's Lunar New Year, the Taipei City urban planning commissioners will soon come here for a site inspection to decide whether to let the No. 15 Road project pass review, which also bears on the fate of Wuyun Villa. We sincerely ask everyone to sign in support!
Petition demands:
Because the land for Yangmingshan No. 15 Road has a steep slope, soil and water conservation is a concern, and there is no traffic necessity, we demand that the Taipei City Urban Planning Commission and the Taipei City Government:
1. Comprehensively review the review principles of the "Taipei City Shilin District Urban Plan Comprehensive Review (Main Plan) Case," and implement the spirit of soil and water conservation and protection of cultural assets.
2. Reject the Yangmingshan No. 15 Road development project, de-designate the road land, and designate it as a protection zone.
3. Designate Wuyun Villa as a historic building.
Petition website:http://tinyurl.com/7jeyeq3
For the illustrated version with old photos, urban plan materials and maps, please download and read athttp://goo.gl/Zg9Qn.