Artistic manhole covers depicting local culture and history are to be unveiled by the end of the year, the Taipei City Government said.
Taipei is turning manhole covers into something eye-catching and symbolic, and since 2013 it has invited designers to beautify otherwise insignificant covers, the city government said on Sunday last week.
Four design companies participated in this year’s project, titled the “Taipei Manhole Cover Design Exhibition” (台北蓋水), with each being responsible for one district in the city, it said.
Screen grab from TaipeiWow’s Facebook account
UID Create designed the covers in Wanhua District (萬華) by incorporating traditional temples, festivals and Ximending’s (西門町) Red House (紅樓), which is known for its unique architectural style, company director Jimmy Chang said.
“Wanhua, the oldest district in Taipei, is packed with traditional temples, such as Longshan Temple (龍山寺) and Cingshan Temple (青山宮). A walk in the district is an encounter with the gods and goddesses along the way,” Chang said. “We hope to present the district’s historical vibes in the manhole covers we design.”
Blueprint Design created covers in Zhongzheng District (中正), with designs featuring Liberty Square and cheering students from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School and Taipei First Girls’ High School.
The imagery echoes elements of the district: humanities, knowledge, democracy and historical relics, the company said.
Bito Studio designed manhole covers in Datong District (大同), which highlighted Dadaocheng’s (大稻埕) Xiahai City God Temple (霞海城隍廟) and traditional apothecary AS Watson and Co — local architectural landmarks.
On the sides of the cover are two pairs of divine blocks — crescent-shaped red blocks that, depending how they land, determine a deity’s answer when praying at a temple — the company said, adding that other elements include fireworks, fabrics, burning incense and traditional herbal medicine.
Hwat’s Design worked on Nangang District’s (南港) manhole covers, which present a view, as if looking up from below the cover, of people from multiple walks of life passing through the district, company chief designer Yang Chia-chang (楊佳璋) said, adding that the district is a transportation hub that holds indefinite possibilities.
The company hopes that the manhole covers can be a platform to convey more than just aesthetics, such as arguments, local specialties, cultural events or the science behind a manhole, Yang added.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS