
Presidential Office Building
Red brick colonial headquarters crowned by a soaring tower, rebuilt after wartime bombing damage.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Presidential Office Building in Taipei opens with a 1906 architecture contest run by Japan's colonial government, whose original winning design was disqualified for resembling a building already under construction in the Netherlands. You'll hear how the runner-up's blueprints were handed to another architect who enlarged the plan, and how American bombers struck the building on May 31, 1945. Notice the red brick facade and central tower as you take it in.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Chiang Kai-Shek Shilin Residence
Fortified former presidential home ringed by a European-style rose garden of thousands of blooms.
Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei
Red-brick former colonial school and city hall turned museum devoted entirely to contemporary art.
National 228 Memorial Museum
Restored 1930s assembly building memorializing a 1947 uprising and its brutal suppression.
National Taiwan Museum
Domed Greek-temple memorial hall with lobby niches that once held statues of the rulers it honored.
Taipei Botanical Garden
City park of lotus ponds, a red-brick herbarium, and a relocated Qing-era government hall.
National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine
Hilltop shrine styled on an imperial palace, honoring hundreds of thousands of war dead.