Department of Cultural Affairs

By Yali Chen
STAFF WRITER

The Beitou Hot Spring Museum in Taipei celebrated its 17th year of operation with a wide variety of cultural activities including music, theater, performances, art installation, and lectures from October 31 until November 22.

Built in 1913 as the Beitou Public Baths, this handsome building is a copy of the bathhouses in Shizuokaken Idouyama in Japan. It is also a good example of the turn-of-the-century fascination among Japanese architects for blending Eastern and Western architecture and aesthetics.

The exterior, with its high roof, chimney, red bricks, and white stucco, was built to resemble a British countryside villa. Upstairs, wooden verandahs surround a tatami room where bathers once took tea and relaxed.

Seventeen years ago, a group of Beitou teachers and students unexpectedly found out the deserted bathhouse – Taiwan's first public bath and East Asia's largest hot-spring public bath area. After the rescue and renovation of the abandoned building, it was designated as a municipal historic site by the Taipei City Government and restored to its former glory. In 1998, the Beitou Hot Spring Museum, previously known as the Beitou Public Bath, was open to the public and has become a must-visit cultural landmark in Taipei.

The statistics showed that the number of visitors to the museum each year had reached 540,000, with international tourists accounting for 25 percent, according to the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA).

Located just inside the Beitou Park at its lower end, the museum has two sections on the first floor: a large Roman-style pool for men and a smaller pool for women and children. In celebration of the museum's 17th year in business, the DCA held a series of cultural events and turned the large and smaller pools into the arts space for installation artworks.

For more details, please go to http://beitoumuseum.taipei.gov.tw/ (in Chinese version) or https://www.facebook.com/beitouhotspringmuseum (in Chinese version).

Information:
Beitou Hot Spring Museum
Tel: (02) 2893-9981
Add: No.2, Zhongshan Rd., Beitou District, Taipei City
Hours: 9:00am – 5:00pm Tuesdays to Sundays, closed Mondays
Admission: Free