PRESERVATION THROUGH THE LENS OF THE CHINESE COMMUNITY: AN ANALYSIS OF TWO NATIONAL MONUMENTS

Abstract

Since the inception of the Preservation of Monuments Board in 1971, the topic of monument preservation has been talked about by many scholars over the years, many of which were written in the early years of built heritage protection. This dissertation will expand on this discussion through the lens of the Chinese community and the two monuments, The Chinese High School Clock Tower and Chung Cheng High School Administration Building & Entrance Arch, which are supposedly representative of them. The gazettal of the two monuments is an inextricable part of larger cultural policies by the post-independent state, specifically on the Chinese community and Chinese education. The resultant narratives are disjointed, reductive and selective in nature. They are disjointed as the architectural merits highlighted are not substantiated by history; reductive as complex notions are simplified to fit larger state policies; selective as controversial aspects of history are omitted. Furthermore, they ignore the surrounding landscape and the perceptions of the end users. With Riegl’s five values of monuments as a starting point, and through an analysis of the two monuments, this dissertation will expound on the relevant policies of the state, and reveal their shortcomings. Gaps in the state narratives will be filled, through historical research and Upton’s landscape approach, although it is by no means exhaustive, as each person will construe the monuments differently and tell a different story. Heritage should not be restricted to a top-down state narrative, but should encompass all these alternative views and memories.