
Taipei Public Library Beitou Branch
Timber-and-glass library with a sloped green roof, built to resist hot-spring steam corrosion.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Taipei Public Library Beitou Branch traces the sulfur fumes that corroded the original library until it closed in 1987, and the decision by architects Chang Ching-hwa and Kuo Ying-chao to rebuild in wood instead of steel. You'll hear how the timber lattice screens, sloped green roof and rainwater collection all serve that one strategy. Notice the hot-spring steam still drifting past the balconies as you listen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Xinbeitou Historic Station
Restored wooden Japanese-era railway station, dismantled and later brought back to its original neighborhood.
Beitou Park
Stone-bridged hot spring park built as the calm gateway to a boiling, radioactive thermal valley nearby.
Lengshuikeng
Milky sulfur-fed pool and bathhouse fed by warm volcanic springs on a mountain rest stop.
Thermal Valley
Steaming, acidic emerald pool in a misty valley, source of a mineral found nowhere else on Earth but here.
Beitou Hot Spring Museum
Restored Japanese-era public bathhouse with a tiled Roman-style bath hall and tatami lounge above.
Sulfur Valley Recreation Area
Steaming geothermal valley of bubbling pools and mineral vents, once the site of centuries of sulfur mining.