Red House Creative Market

　　Creative markets not only promote interaction between DIY and customers, but also help DIY makers to interact. Beginning in July 2007, Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs and Taipei Culture Foundation started jointly sponsoring the Ximen Red House creative market, successfully congregating many young creative artists in Taiwan to set up stalls, further attracting lots of tourists to purchase creative merchandise for everyday use.

The creative market at Ximen Red House, taken from Ximen Red House

Red House historic site and creative market

　　　Red House of Ximen was constructed in 1908, and it has been over a century. It is the first officially-constructed and officially-operated market in Taiwan, and is also the most well-preserved level 3 historic market structure. An octagonal shape of the market entry seeks to attract business from eight directions, and the cross-shaped form of the main market is unique across Eastern and Western architectural history. The octagonal building and cross-shaped building, as well as the northern and southern plazas are jointly referred to as “Ximen Red House.”
　　　On November 2007, Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs commissioned Taipei Culture Foundation to manage operations. By holding cultural and creative events, its content was changed and it successfully transformed into a new cultural and creative industrial development center in Taipei City. The creative market in the north plaza is one of these cultural and creative enterprises.

Ximen Red House is a historic site from the Japanese era, and the north plaza has the creative market.

Rapid development of creative markets

Starting in 2007, Red House began operations of 16 workshops and creative markets, limiting stores to DIY and self-created brands, it has attracted innumerable tourists. The number of stalls in the creative market quickly grew from 30 in the beginning to nearly a hundred. In the last year, local guests and tourists from elsewhere even reached a peak of nearly 4 million person-times. Among them, about 50% are tourists from central Taiwan and overseas.
The reason that creative products can attract overseas tourists because the number of products is low, they are unique, and there can be direct contact with the creators. Many tourists believe that at Red House creative market can show the lifestyles of Taiwanese youth, they can also see a different Taipei, and this is a culturally diverse area.
Red House creative market is in business each Saturday from 14:00 to 22:00, and each Sunday from 14:00 to 21:30, and during the summer (July to August) the business hours are adjusted to starting at 15:00.

There are many DIY artworks in the creative market.

The stall owners taking care of their stalls in the creative market.

The owners sell their products while making more DIY products.

The intricate handicraft items attract many customers.

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Flying 26, Guangfu Primary School in Taipei 2013