This Taiwan Sugar Manufacturing Co., Ltd. office building was built in 1901. It not only symbolized a milestone of Taiwan on the modernized sugar manufacturing industry, but was also one of the most important buildings from the Japanese Colonial Era.

This building combined wood structure (roof truss and pile) with bricks (wall) and concrete (4 pillars of the observation), making it the most important construction in Taiwan’s architecture history. The building imitated Dutch colonial buildings in Southeast Asia by having a high-grounded floor for ventilation and transplant of traditional European architecture by added corridors and consecutive arches.

Heritage expert Mr. Li Chien-lang called it a “tropical colonial Western-style building.”Square holes surrounding the top of the building were not for decoration, but embrasures for guns when defending “bandit” attacks.

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