Taipei’s Grass Mountain Waterworks – Boring but Important
Posted: August 20th, 2010 | 3 Comments »
OK – Taipei’s Grass Mountain Waterworks are not perhaps the most engrossing of old buildings to be found in Taiwan but they’re quite important. The waterworks are well up the side of Yangmingshan and if you take the stepped route up from Tianmu the waterworks are a pretty sweaty climb. As Taipei grew and expanded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries so the occupying Japanese had to ramp up the water supply and sanitation facilities. ration could not meet the population’s needs. Therefore, in 1928, the Grass Mountain Waterworks were opened in 1928Â delivering 28,800 cubic meters of water from Yangmingshan to 150,000 people in Taipei per day.
So not perhaps the most fascinating structure ever to grace this blog but cities don’t expand and grow without waterworks and other public utilities.
the thrilling waterworks – but still, an original building
And here’s the pipe taking the water down the mountain to Taipei
What’s amazing is that after so many decades, and it still works. Compare with the 50 year life expectancy of most buildings in a neighboring country, this is something.
There is a large community at the top of the Tianmu Trail, just east of the Chinese Culture University, that was used by U.S. Military Forces stationed in Taiwan. As an 11 year old, I’d walk down the trail to get to my Little League baseball games, Summer 1968 (and back up if I couldn’t get a ride). There are efforts today to save that neighborhood and establish an open-air museum and ecological preserve, continuous with Yangmingshan National Park (the property is owned by the Bank of Taiwan that would prefer to develop it). Thanks for the trip!
Rory, these two posts on that area from 3/4 years ago. Last time I was there in 2011/2012 or thereabouts the area was starting to fall into serious disrepair….
http://www.chinarhyming.com/2010/09/05/taipei-weekend-4-bungalows-of-aifu-road/
http://www.chinarhyming.com/2011/05/04/coming-down-alert-taipeis-1950s-aifu-road-bungalows-falling-into-disrepair/