Wang Da-hong

Wang Da-hong (王大閎; b.1918) was one of the pioneers of modernist architecture in Taiwan. His notable works include the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Taipei. In the early 1960s, Wang won the competition to design the National Palace Museum, however his modernist design was ultimately rejected in favour of a more traditional approach by Huang Baoyu.

Wang was born in Beijing, but grew up in Shanghai and Suzhou. During the early 1930s, he went to school in Switzerland. In 1936, he started studied engineering at Cambridge University, before switching to architecture. In 1940, he enrolled at Harvard University, where he was taught by Walter Gropius. There, Wang was briefly a classmate of Huang Zuo-shen (aka Henry Huang), the founding director of The School of Architecture at Tongji University. Later, Wang was a classmate of both IM Pei and Philip Johnson.

Returning to Shanghai in 1947, he started working with Huang at Five United, a disparate group of Chinese architects who had mostly studied at British universities.

The Society for Research and Preservation of Wang Da-hong’s Architecture was founded in December 2013. Shyu Ming-song, secretary general of the society, says that Wang's single-story house (c.1953) on Jianguo South Road in Taipei “...was perhaps the first Western-style work with Chinese features to garner high acclaim in Taiwan”.

In February 2014, Wang was awarded Taiwan's National Cultural Award. He was also a fiction writer, with two novels published.

Notable works

• Wei Family residence in Taiwan (late 1940s)
• Office of Taiwan Fisheries (late 1940s)
• Central Bank, Guangzhou branch (late 1940s)
• Architect's residence, Jianguo South Road, Taipei (c.1953) – demolished, later rebuilt as a replica in the Taipei Art Park (c.2014)
• Initial blueprint for the National Palace Museum (early 1960s) – later rejected
• Hong-Lu Apartments, Jinan Road, Taipei (c.1964)
• Monument to the Moon Conquest (c.1969) – not constructed
• Republic of China (ROC) Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, Taipei (c.1972)
• Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei (16 May 1972)
• East Gate Presbyterian Church, Taipei (c.1980)

Publications

• Du Lian-kue (1977, novel) by Wang Da-hong – published in Chinese
• Phantasmagoria (2013, novel) by Wang Da-hong – published in English, later translated into Chinese