Walking into the red building and listening to their stories

As you walk into the campus of Rixin Primary School, immediately your attention would be drawn to the red building at front gate. The century-old red building, with the beautifully arched double hallways, was built with red bricks polished by the passing of time.

We wonder for the reason why a senior alumnus would want to donate tens of millions of NT dollars for renovating the old building, while the same sum of money could easily afford two or three brand new air-conditioned buildings. We are curious of the answers. Thus, leading by our teacher, we launch a trip for discovering the secrets behind.

We start from our own school, the red building of Rixin, to do lots of research and interview. Further, we walk out of the campus to extend our reach to old buildings around this neighborhood. Focusing on the theme of preservation of historical architectures and new lives of old buildings, we visit the important historical red buildings in Taipei city, trying to find out more about them.

At the end of this trip, we get it. We understand the stories that these old buildings are saying. It is only by preserving them that we could step closer to them and to know about the history they are carrying. There always could be gorgeous brand new buildings being constructed, but there wouldn’t be any way to build up an “old” building with all the historical memories to tell.