Taipei Municipal Historic Sites
【Warehouses 1 to 5 & the Conveyor Belt】
The Tobacco Factory was first built with 10 warehouses. Warehouses 11 to 15 were added after WWII. As some warehouses were seriously damaged, only Warehouses 1 to 5 still remain and currently serve as important multi-purpose spaces for exhibitions and performances. During its time as a tobacco factory, cigarettes were manufactured, rolled, and packed on the second floor; they were then directly transmitted to Warehouse 2 via conveyor belt, reducing reliance on manpower. They were then transported from the warehouse to sales locations.
【Office Building】
The Office Building served as the offices and meeting rooms of the Tobacco Factory employees. Today, the first floor has been converted to the SCCP Information Center and the Design Pin. The second floor is the SCCP Management Center. The building’s floor and window frames are made from wood, and the stones used for the walls were all custom cut, giving the architecture a unique and exquisite style.
【Tobacco Factory】
The Tobacco Factory is where tobacco leaves were handled, and cigarettes were rolled and packed. Well-known old cigarette brands, such as “Long Life” and “New Paradise”, were manufactured here. The factory was especially designed with single long rooms without partitions. Many columns were positioned on the first floor to bear the weight of the machinery on the second floor.
【Boiler Room】
The Boiler Room once burned heavy oil to provide power for the Tobacco Factory. Its chimney used to be a Taipei City landmark. It now looks out to the faraway Taipei 101, a current Taipei City landmark, forming a visual juxtaposition of the old and the new.
【Inspection Room】
Tobacco Factory employees had to pass through the Inspection Room as they reported to and got off work. The Inspection Room serves the purpose of today’s guard rooms, with security personnel keeping watch. To advocate for mutual support within the cultural creative industry and explore diverse business models, the room is now converted to a pop-up shop for brands to utilize. With the space rejuvenated, consumers are offered more choices with a different kind of shop.
【Machinery Repair Plant】
The Tobacco Factory was equipped with 30 machines for manufacturing cigarettes without filter tips, yielding 2 billion cigarettes per year. The Machinery Repair Plant was where cigarette manufacturing equipment and machines were repaired.
【Nursery Room】
Built around the concept of an industrial village, Songshan Tobacco Factory employed up to 2,000 workers in its heyday. Therefore, spaces were designed with different purposes. The Nursery Room has been relocated due to the construction of Taipei Dome. It resembles today’s kindergartens or nurseries. Employees could leave their babies or toddlers in the care of the nannies here, so that they could go to work with a peace of mind.
Signature Buildings
【Baroque Garden – Garden of Evening Fragrance】
The garden was designed in 1958 by Lin Yuan-lang, a Taipei Cigarette Factory technical specialist, at the invitation of then factory director, Chen Lu-tan. Lin adopted geometric designs and fused Chinese and Western cultural elements. The fountain in the garden is a rare three-tier design resembling a champagne tower, and was built for moisture-regulating and fire-control purposes.
【Eco Pond】
This large reservoir was originally constructed for fire control; it has now been repurposed into an Eco Pond surrounded by diverse conserved plants. This is a great place to hear frogs croaking and insects chirping. A rare urban wetland in Taipei City, it is considered a “green gem” of Taipei’s Eastern District.
【Multi-Purpose Exhibition and Performance Hall】
The Hall was an auditorium for employees to dine and assemble. It later served as a basketball court, where the Taiwan Provincial Monopoly Bureau basketball team would practice. Now, it has been converted into the spacious Multi-Purpose Exhibition and Performance Hall, which serves well for a variety of exhibitions and performances.
