I can conceive of nothing more wantonly destructive than tearing down the walls. Walls have been a characteristic feature of Chinese urban landscapes for millenia. In the case of the park, they serve important purposes, both utilitarian and aesthetic.

I also think there may be some cultural \’imperialism\’ going on here. Chinese came to view their city walls as feudal and backwards only because the foreigners critcized them. One of the worst things the CCP did to Beijing was tear down the walls. There were certain visionaries, Chinese visionaries, who wanted to keep them. Liang Sicheng was their champion. You should check out his blueprints on how to utilize walls to create traditionally Chinese themed public spaces. Unfortunately, they lost the day, to precisely the same criticisms I\’m seeing here, and the city is far the worse for it.

I like many of your suggestions for improving the park within, but see no reason to go all Red Guard on the walls (in the sense of anything traditional is bad), or as Poagao phrased it, \”throw out the baby with the bathwater\”.

Perhaps one segment can be a foreigner segment to show the Taiwanese kids that many foreigners contributed positively to Taiwan. Kids shouldn’t have the idea that foreigners came/come here just to exploit the place. Even the early Dutch contributed technologies and management systems and created an economy. (Interesting that after the Dutch were forced out, 20 years later they were asked to return to rebuild the decimated economy ~ according to Murray A. Rubinstein’s book
Taiwan – A new History.

The foreigner statue segment could include people like the Scottish engineer that designed the Taipei city water system, the American (I think) that was the engineer for Sun Moon lake, George Kerr for documenting the truth of a certain era, Dr. Mackay, Dr. Noordoff, famous missionaries, and many others. (hopefully someone positive from the US Military times as well ~ Eisenhower?). This way the kids can walk around the park and learn about the history with a open mind. Perhaps even have a test (!) at the end, if they memorize all the people they get a special park medal.

Re the walls, It is a lot of maintenance to keep up. If you look at the intricacy of the overhanging roofs, its a lot of work to keep painted and keep clean. The windows look cool, especially how each segment has 10 or so different shapes. Perhaps they can keep certain sections of the walls here and there. Many 10 statues a wall segment, then 10 statutes… Hong Kong has a Statue Square right in the middle of Central that is very popular (mostly because it has seats and shading ~ but people do look at and read the statues).

Lastly perhaps integrated somewhere can contain small temples since religion is so big (and free to worship) here. Perhaps a Taoist ~ Matsu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim temple somewhere in the park. For special religious events, the park can hold a lot of people. There would be no need to squish into St. Christopher’s for Christmas mass anymore.

In that case, I think lighting changes or even another access point, i.e. another gate would work just fine as the neighborhood just outside that part is more attractive and open. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater by tearing down the entire wall and the gates just to make a political point.

I think the main motivation for changing the park is political too. That is why I am arguing for more thought to go into planning the changes. Rather than just removing a few symbols which some people don’t like, it can be used as an opportunity to improve the urban environment of Taipei.

I also understand the fact that some people like the current features of the park. That needs to be taken into account in making any changes.