The Grand Hotel Taipei on Thursday unveiled a new fountain with a different version of the establishment’s signature dragon statue that replicated the monument’s original appearance during the Japanese colonial era.
Last year, a piece of the hotel’s ceiling fell on the dragon and broke off its head, necessitating a restoration project that led to the discovery that the statue’s form had been altered, a hotel representative said.
The Taiwan Shinto Temple, which formerly occupied the hotel’s site, built a fountain with a brass dragon sprinkler in 1919, they said, adding the statue was dismantled and reassembled during the hotel’s construction.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
In 1956, the dragon statue was moved indoors following a renovation of the hotel’s interior, and another renovation in 1987 led to the statue being gilded with pure gold, they said.
Following the incident last year, the restoration team discovered signs of alterations to the monument’s structure, leading to a second dragon statue being built to honor the original design, they said.
The head of the fountain’s dragon statue is raised, with its horns lengthened and a claw clutching a globe, sculptor Pu Hao-ming (蒲浩明) said.
The new monument was created by lost-wax casting, the technique used by Shizumi Saitou, the sculptor who made the original, he said.
Saitou’s metalworking prowess was evidenced by parts of the statue that were no thicker than 3mm, Pu said.
The final creation was 25 percent larger than the original to make better use of the hotel’s capacious garden, he said.
The project utilized 3D scanning and modeling technology to recreate the monument’s former appearance from old photographs, said Wang Tso-jung (王佐榮), a published author of popular history.
The decision was made to create a second iteration of the statue, because the golden dragon was an iconic part of the establishment’s history, said former hotel chairman Lin Yu-sheng (林育生), who headed the project.
The recreation of the colonial-period dragon is an homage to the nation’s cultural heritage, hotel chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) said, adding that the Grand Hotel Taipei is an establishment that bore witness to Taiwan’s history.
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