National Taiwan Museum Nanmen Branch

It was renamed the Nanmen Factory in 1901 and the Taipei Nanmen Factory in 1931, and was the only state-run camphor processing plant in Taiwan in the Japanese era. After the war the government took over the factory. After the 228 Incident in 1947, Taiwan's monopoly business was reduced to tobacco, alcohol and camphor. The factory was renamed the Taiwan Provincial Camphor Refinery in 1952 and the Taiwan Provincial Camphor Factory in 1956. In December 1967 camphor was opened to private business, and the factory closed. Today only the goods warehouse (the 'Little White House'), the camphor warehouse (the 'Red House') and the 400-koku water storage tank remain, and the site is less than one-eighth of its Japanese-era size. In 1998 the Ministry of the Interior designated the Nanmen Factory a national monument. From 2004 the National Taiwan Museum, under the capital cultural park plan of the Ministry of Culture (formerly the Executive Yuan's cultural development council), built up a 'National Taiwan Museum System', reusing historic spaces in the city as museum spaces. In 2006 the national property bureau transferred the factory's land and buildings to the National Taiwan Museum, which reused the historic buildings as exhibition halls and built a new collection storage building, with restoration and reuse designed by the architects 詹益忠建築師事務所. The restoration was like a dissection of architectural history, and brought together architectural design, structure, mechanical and electrical services, conservation, archaeology, traditional crafts, history and engineering.

Translated by DealTaipei from Taiwan's national tourism database. Sources are on the terms page.