For Whom Is Industrial Heritage Preserved? Conservation and Exhibition at Taipei Railway Workshop

The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to welcome Chun-Wen Chen to share the preservation case of the Taipei Railway Workshop, exploring the multifaceted positioning and power dynamics of industrial heritage in contemporary Taiwanese society. 

As Taiwan’s first modernized railway factory, the Taipei Railway Workshop witnessed the development of railway technology from the colonial period to the present day. Unlike most cultural assets in Taiwan during the preservation movement of the 1990s and 2000s, which were transformed into creative parks and thereby lost their original functions, the Taipei Railway Workshop uniquely adopted a museum model that retains and exhibits its original railway function, making it an exceptional case.

The talk first analyses the preservation process of the workshop, demonstrating how various social groups, government agencies, and local communities contended to achieve its full-scale conservation. In addition to applying Tony Bennett’s concept of the 'exhibitionary complex' to explain the museum’s role in shaping national narratives, this talk further introduces the theories of John Tunbridge and Gregory Ashworth to analyse how the Taipei Railway Workshop's focus on its original function achieves 'symbolic legitimacy' and 'functional legitimacy', allowing its railway culture to meet societal expectations and gain broad public recognition.

Finally, from the perspective of new museology, the talk emphasizes that museums should serve as platforms for public engagement, embracing diverse voices and achieving true public engagement and pluralistic values in the preservation and reuse of industrial heritage.