Origin ...

Sin-hua (Street Town Hall) is the original Sin-hua Township Office. During Japanese colonization, Sin-hua Township was named Tavokan neighborhood. In 920, It was renamed Sin-hua Street. The land of Street Town Hall was donated by the first head of Street Mr. Liang Tao. Constructed in R.O.C. Year 23 (1934), 73 years have passed since its completion. It is a rare Japanese style building in existence in Taiwan and possesses historic and cultural significances. It ranked third in the top 100 historic buildings in Taiwan. It is a record of historic development in Sin-hua and a shared memory of its residents.

Building perspective...

Street Town Hall (Street Town Hall) is spatially layered by beams and arches. The main structure is made up of reinforced concrete usin g mainly bricks and tiles stone as building surface construction materials collocated with kiln 13 ditch facing brick, which are same building materials of National Taiwan University. The building surface and interior are decorated with renaissance styled bricks and tiles stone, combined with western and local architecture styles. The arch shaped entrance design even made breakthrough, different from regular public buildings during Japanese colonization. The agile features of buildings after renaissance was fully expressed, which made this building valuable and worth preserving.

Chien Kun Ta No Yi- Moving house

Since Township Office moved into this new building in 1996, Sin-hua Street Town Hall fell into disuse. It was not until year 1999 was Street Town Hall constructed into an underground parking area. At the time of demolition, people's awareness in Sin-hua Street Town Hall was awakened. With the joint signatures submitted by National Cheng Kung University, Tainan Institute of Art, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Township office agreed to temporarily transfer and return to the original location (constructed in to a cultural museum) after the par king area has been completed. However, Street Town Hall is situated in the city and neighboring governmental units and land owners were reluctant to temporarily accommodate it, it had to transfer to Chin-Guo Market (Vegetable and Fruit Market) about 310 meters away (or 620 meters back and forth). The boss of South North House Moving Co. who had completed Erchieh's Wang Kung Temple in Yilan and National Taiwan University Medical Center said it set the record for the longest house moving distance!

On March 21 st , 2000, Street Town Hall began its long and far journey. More than 1500 people joined this house-moving activity and the expected moving distance was 8.5 meters.

Most of these participants are women and middle to old aged people. Young people who went to site to watch also joined in the end to replace their uncles, aunts, and parents and marked this historic moment of thousand people moving house by 3 meters. There was sweat on each person, everyone was soaked, and the skin on their palms was torn, but the community simply lit up!

On March 29 th , 2002, the underground parking area was completed. Street Town Hall returned to its original site. The house-moving cost over 3 million dollars that, is $5,000 for each meter! Perhaps, some may say that this engineering is both money and time consuming, but for us, this moving activity in Sin-hua allowed us to pick up where we left off and the community bonding became closer. It was something that money could not buy!