Since 2013, with the generous sponsorship received from the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, I have closely worked with Professor Juhani Pallasmaa and Wang Chun-Hsiung to prepare our touring exhibition “Making Places: Fieldoffice Architects and Sheng-Yuan Huang” in Europe. Our exhibition preparation included my touring lecture both in the Nordic and East Asian countries in 2013 winter and the international symposium “Architecture for People: Challenges and Opportunities of Contemporary East Asian Society”, organized by Chung Yuan Christian University and Shih Chien University and hosted at Taipei in 2014 winter. Th is symposium grounded ‘social dimension’ of architecture and ‘radical pragmaticism’ of architects as two key concepts of our exhibition and the work of architect Huamg Sheng-Yuan as the subject.

In 2016 summer, Professor Juhani Pallasmaa, Director Tommi Lindh (Alvar Aalto Museum), Triin Ojari (Museum of Estonian Architecture) and Alex Susanna Nadal (Catalan Agency for Cultural Heritage) studied the work of architect HUANG onsite at Yilan and Taipei, Taiwan. With their high praise and endorsement, this helped us to receive the confi rmation of our fi rst and second exhibition venue, separately hosted at Alvar Aalto Museum in 2016 autumn and Museum of Estonian Architecture in 2017 spring.

This catalogue is published to indicate our third exhibition venue of “Making Places” at Ostrava, organized by Alliance for Architectural Modernity, Taiwan, Cabinet of Architecture — Tadeáš Goryczka and Jaroslav Němec, and Gallery of Fine Art in Ostrava. This catalogue contains the introduction of exhibition and profi les of particular constructions written by Professor Wang Chun-Hsiung (curator), interview of architect Huang by me, and “Architecture for Healing. The Urban Surgery of Huang Sheng-Yuan” by Professor Pallasmaa (curator). Th e above content is followed by the poem “Th e

Blue Mountain” written by Director Álex Susanna i Nadal and credits of the exhibition team.

As the first international touring exhibition on the work of Taiwanese architects in the history of Taiwan, the exhibition team and I express our deepest gratitude to all partnering personals and institutions, as well as our sponsors. Th is exhibition, instead of presenting the building culture of Taiwan, is focusing on the distinct characteristics found in the life and work of architect Huang and his colleagues. Th rough presenting their signifi cant architectural practices over the past 20 years, we aim to emphasize the innermost ethics of architects and the sociopolitical role of architecture in today’s discourse on the social dimension of architecture. We believe, architecture should be an agent of social progress, and architects should see their professional practices as an actual instrument of social emancipation to improve the quality, equality and sustainability of human life. As Professor Pallasmaa wrote, “the little man” — “the unknown citizen of the City”, should be “the architect’s real client”.

Čchen-jou Ťiou / Chiu Chen-Yu

Authors and curators: HUANG, Sheng-Yuan / CHIU, Chen-Yu / Zon Chen                                                                                           
Curators: Tadeáš Goryczka, Jaroslav Němec / Kabinet architektury