Ide Kaoru (井手薰,いでかおる, February 6, 1879 - May 11, 1944) was Chief Architect of the Governor-General's Office in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, when the island was part of the

Japanese Empire The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From 1910 to ...

. He held office in the Building and Repairs section of the Japanese Government-General in Taiwan, and was mainly involved with government and municipal building projects. His distinctive architectural ideas influenced the Taiwanese architectural profession. He was born in

Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,910,511 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...

Japan. Ide Kaoru favoured a "localisation" approach to Taiwan's architecture. He was influenced by

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

, and in 1929 was elected President of the . He was an advocate of using reinforced concrete, and this featured in almost all his works. Seismic resistance was of the highest priority, as Taiwan is prone to earthquakes. Amongst Ide's most notable works was the

Zhongshan Hall Zhongshan Hall () is a historic building which originally functioned as the Taipei (Taihoku) City Public Auditorium (public hall). It is located at 98 Yanping South Road in the Ximending neighborhood of Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan. In 19 ...

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

, which remains in daily use today as a concert hall and cultural centre. Over the years, many receptions have been held there for heads of state and foreign dignitaries, and in 1992 it was designated a Class Two National Historical Site. He also designed the Judicial Yuan Building in the Imperial Crown style, which was completed in 1934. His design for the

Executive Yuan The Executive Yuan () is the executive (government), executive branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Under the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China, amended constitution, the head of the Execut ...

building (completed 1940) was influenced by

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

and the work of

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

. Ide graduated from

Tokyo Imperial University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public university, public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several Edo peri ...

in 1906, then moved to Taiwan in 1911. He was one of the few Japanese architects to immerse himself professionally in Taiwan, and stayed there for more than thirty years. He also wrote extensively on the subject of architecture.

Notable works

*Taipei Presbyterian Church (1916) *Chienkung Shrine (Kenkō Jinja, 建功神社, 1928) N.B. Heavily modified from its original design after WWII. * Taipei University School Building and Lecture Hall (1928) *Taipei Taiwan Education Hall (1931) * Judicial Office Building (1934) *Commemorative Exposition of the Beginning of the Governance of Taiwan for 40 years (1935) *Hsinchu Police Headquarters (1935) *Taipei Zhongshan Hall (1936, originally Taipei City Public Auditorium) *Kaohsiung Customs House (1936) *Taipei Police Headquarters (1936) *Chiayi Police Headquarters (1937) *Executive Yuan building (1940)

References

External links

* History Exhibit of Taiwan's Executive Yuan (Parliament) building

* Judicial Yuan websit

* Zhongshan Hall websit

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ide, Kaoru 20th-century Japanese architects University of Tokyo alumni 1879 births 1944 deaths Imperial Crown Style architecture Members of the Government-General of Taiwan