Not far from Taipei 101 and the heart of Taipei’s central business district one will find an ulcerous anomaly on the supine body of the sprawling city. It would be impossible to miss this ruin, for a wild riot of plant life traces its angular outlines, and an unusual assortment of graffiti gilds the arcade along Keelung Road. I regularly ride by here on my way to various working cafes further afield and naturally couldn’t resist taking a look inside one day. I have not puzzled out the formal name of this abandonment but strongly suspect it was an official guest house related to the armed forces, particularly as it was located adjacent to the former #44 West Village (四四西村), a military dependents’ settlement.
Take refuge from the busy streets and you’ll find yourself secreted away to a world left to the predations of the subtropical jungle. Almost every surface is overrun with roots and vines. Even in the midday heat the courtyard, shaded by palms, is refreshingly cool—but also home to an energetic variety of insect pests. Still unsure of what I had found on my first visit, I proceeded to the entrance around front.
Immediately inside one is greeted with the appearance of a hotel. Vibrant red carpets line the floors and a wide staircase spirals up the front of the building. A lone sign on the wall reads zhìmàoguì 置帽櫃, a place to hang your hat. Bundles of uniforms laying on the ground suggest this place once held some official function.
One of the more curious features of this ruin are the seals on almost every window in the building, all of which are dated to March 9th, 2006. This neatly establishes exactly when this place was abandoned—but why? What turn of events prompted the former residents to depart?
Spacious rooms on the first and second floors indicate this guest house could have been used for dining and entertainment. The second floor even has a dumbwaiter to bring food up from the ground floor kitchen. Upstairs one will find about five or six bedrooms as well as an office with a big desk, now a decaying pile of wood laying at odd angles on the floor.
This particular ruin evades detailed explication but there is, at least, a general sense of what may have transpired within this space. If nothing else, the aesthetics of a decade’s rewilding have a certain appeal, and the view of Taipei 101 from the rooftop sets it apart from most other ruins. As far as I know only the nearby Stanton Club affords nearly as nice a view.
The guest house was completely sealed in early 2017 and razed to the ground in 2018. Nothing remains except these photographs.