Localizing of Modernity transplanting from Modern Western Architecture in 60's - In the case of Luce Chapel

Jiang, Bo-Hong

PhD. Student Dept. Architecture, TamKang University, Taiwan

Wu, Kwang-Tyng

Associate Prof. Dept. Architecture, TamKang University, Taiwan

Abstract This study attempts to discuss the localizing process of Modernity, which was transplanted from Modern Western Architecture in the 1960s to a significant example, Luce Chapel in Tunghai University in Taiwan. The chapel is comprised of four pieces of “conoid” shell. At that time, this kind of composition relied much on complex calculations of structures and high-quality construction. Consequently, despite completion of the preliminary design in 1957, the chapel was not constructed until 1962. The major reasons of the delay are caused by lack of compatibility of construction systems in Taiwan then to realize the design of wooden construction accomplished in the U.S.A. This study intends to discover what was adopted and what was left out in terms of design, construction methods, and materials through in-depth description and explanation. This study aims at depicting the execution process of a particular case in a non-linear and more detailed, though somehow complex, way. Through the depiction, how contradictions are resolved in the process of design or construction is highlighted. Keywords : Luce Chapel, Localization, Tectonic Culture, Modern Architecture in Taiwan

Introduction Concrete was gradually applied all over Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s but in different ways. Roughly, in the 1960s, concrete was still costly, compared to man power. At that time, the maximum effect was attempted with least concrete. Therefore, construction methods such as shell, folded plate, expansion, etc. were largely adopted in the initial stage of industry building. However, in the 1970s, due to various factors, the construction business was mushrooming despite lack of manpower, high wages, and lack of technicians. The circumstances resulted in uses of tiling, curtain walls, and precasting. Take Chi-kuan Chen 1(陳其寬) for example. The construction method of shell was realized extensively in the 1960s, not long after the 1970s.

The purpose of this study intends to explore the potential integration of resources which made the building of Luce Chapel possible before the transformation of construction methods in the 1970s in Taiwan. Meanwhile, this study will also probe into related research of this chapel and compensate for its inadequacy. Targeting at this chapel as reference for studying tectonic in the 1960s was because of its

1 Chen is the co-architect of Luce Chapel. unique status in the construction activities during the post-war Taiwan in terms of the era it was located, its geographical site, its designer, structure and space contour, and even its construction team.

The study is divided into three parts: related discussions of Luce Chapel in Taiwan, the design and construction process of it, and insights of the author about it.

I. Related discussions of Luce Chapel in Taiwan Luce Chapel, which locates in TungHai University in Taiwan, was commissioned to I. M. Pei, the designer of it, by the Luce family in 1956. One year later, the preliminary design was published in two magazines, “Architectural Forum” and “Architectural Record.” Although I. M. Pei has been worldwide recognized as the designer of Luce Chapel, most historians of Taiwanese Architecture attributed the honor to another famous architect, Chi-Kuan Chen.

Luce Chapel gained a very special status in the post-war architecture of Taiwan. A bunch of studies or articles aimed at discussing it. Related discussions can be divided into two kinds. The first viewpoint viewed the chapel as a representative of Chinese modern architecture as well as the best combination of the eastern and western cultures (Fu, 2003; Han, 2003). The insight was based on a distinction between China and the western world or between modernism and tradition. Architecture was realization of architects’ personal idea and imagination influenced by a certain era. This viewpoint has been fairly prevalent until now.

The other viewpoint attempted to investigate the Luce Chapel in terms of its construction process. The debate on modern and tradition or east and west was no longer an issue. The point was to explain the relationship between architecture concepts and space form (Lai, 1999). Since the stress was on the corresponding relationship between space form and architecture concepts, the description about construction process became praise to the past construction skill, not the effort which Chen and the construction team had made to bridge the gap between Taiwan and USA. Consequently, the description of its design and construction process was basically linear.

However, it was the changes and turning points that showed the development and transformation of modern architecture in the 1960s in Taiwan. The events or factors related to those changes and turning points could only be clarified through those abandoned, transformed, or specially ordered construction methods or materials of the Luce Chapel. On the basis of the linear meta-description previously covered, there is still some possibility to probe into the subject, the Luce Chapel, in another way.

II. Design of Luce Chapel and its construction process 1. Design of Luce Chapel Beginning in 1956, the primitive idea of Luce Chapel was making use of “brick arch.” With several times of revision suggested by Chen’s colleagues, its shape almost resembled the current one though the outline of façade was straight (See Figure 1). Recommended by Lady Ferguson 2, the outer walls of the chapel were settled down with Conoid shell. According to the pictures shown on Architectural Forum in March, 1957 and Architectural Record in August, 1957, the preset construction method of the chapel was based on wood (See Figure 2). Nevertheless, it was still uncertain about how to resolve wood construction by Conoid and further to finalize the budget (Chen ，1995; Lai ，1999).

Fig.1.Models of Luce Chapel’s Developmental Stages Fig.2.Luce Chapel of Wooden Construction

In addition to the technical problem just mentioned, there was still an irreversible hurdle to build the chapel with wood because of the poor condition of producing construction materials and transportation of them in the 1960s, Taiwan. The hyperboloid wall was composed of “board, frame and board” in Chen’s original concept. The edges of walls were enclosed by U-shaped steel. However, U-shaped edges are curved and 18- meter long so transportation at that time was unachievable (Chen ，1995; Zhen ，2006).

In 1958, the next year Chen came to Taiwan, he got acquainted with a structure engineer, Hou-Shan Fong(鳳後三), who had studied further in France, so it occurred to Chen that concrete use might be a possible solution to building up the chapel. With insistence by his colleague on wood construction, Chen could not settle down the dispute so the son of the sponsor, Henry W. Luce, who initiated the publication of the Time Magazine, decided to cease the construction. In 1960, Henry W. Luce was shocked at the unstarting of the chapel when he visited Taiwan and determined to resume the construction. Meanwhile, Chen had decided the construction method. In December, 1960, Chen and Fong finished the design and sent it to the U.S. for verification. Due to some disagreement of Pei’s structure engineer on estimation of structure safety, the construction project was delayed. Finally, in April, 1961, the head of Tunghai University board committee wrote to H.R. Luce to clarify the results of the design and to decide on the budget; in November, 1962, the construction of the Luce Chapel commenced.

2 M. Ferguson, daughter of J. C. Ferguson, was a member of UBCCC (The United Board for Christian Colleges in China) then. 2. Working Drawing Working drawings was fourfold. First, one sheet of site planning was devised with English annotations. Second, architecture drawings, totally eight sheets, including elevations, sections, and details, along with mixed English and Chinese annotations within them were completed. Third, five-piece framework drawings with Chinese annotations and finally seven-piece structure drawings with English annotations were done by Fong and his assistants. Except some architecture drawing and framework drawings, the targeted people of this set of drawings were the staff of Pei’s firm overseas.

Among the working drawings, the most particular part was the framework one. It clearly showed the size and location for temporary supporting system of the moldboards. Meanwhile, it marked the size and number of iron plates and bolts for supporting system (see Fig. 3). The framework drawings, different from the rest annotated in English or both languages, was annotated in Chinese. It can be assumed that this part was used only as reference for the construction department building temporary supporting system instead of the team members overseas.

The need of framework drawing originated from the uniqueness of the chapel itself. The shell of the chapel was large-scaled; at the same time, Fong’s structure calculation had been questioned of its feasibility. Therefore, before the compressive strength of concrete was enough, temporary upholding was necessary. Besides, to avoid cracking of the shell when the load was uneven and moldboards were torn down, how to remove the supporting system had to be considered and estimated.

Fig. 3. Plans of Fong’s Supporting System 3. Construction Process One of the important factors of the completion of the chapel was devotion of Gen-Zong Wu(吳艮宗), Leader of Guang-Yuan Construction Company(光源營造廠). Before the commencement of constructing the Luce Chapel, Wu intended to go to Japan to study the properties of concrete but the trip was given up due to the limitation of overseas trips on people at the time in Taiwan. Instead, he self-studied a book in Japanese to understand proper construction with concrete.

For instance, to precisely produce concrete of suitable compressive strength, Wu ordered giant buckets for measurement instead of rough calculation. In addition, impurities were reduced to maintain compressive strength and amount of water contained in sandstone by rinsing sandstone until dirty water and impurities were completely removed. Afterwards, sandstone was dry fried in a large pan until it was drained of water. In this way, 20% of the weight was lost.

The pursuit of perfection was carried out repeatedly in stages of producing usable concrete. For example, acetylene was commonly used in Taiwan to melt and cut reinforcing steel. Instead, Wu noticed that it would yield the strength of steel. So he insisted workers cut down steel with cutters. Then, although the minimum compressive strength of concrete based on the working drawing was 3000 psi, Wu elevated it to 4000 psi.

Fig. 4. Inner Supporting System

The grouting process was also extremely well-monitored. Since the chapel had four pieces of shell, Wu grouted one piece a day and 1.5 metes high per time. Only in this way of grouting can the strength of concrete be qualified with sufficient three-day drying and ruptures of moldboards could be avoided. What’s more, every time before grouting, bubble floaters on the top layer of previously grouted concrete had to be removed with delicate tools. With that, cohesiveness between concrete layers would not fail due to bubble floaters between joint spots.

III. Discussion on transplanting modern architecture in Taiwan in terms of the design and construction process of the Luce Chapel The author was convinced that from design to construction, the Luce Chapel faced at least three turning points before its completion.

1. Wood or concrete construction method It can be supposed that if Luce Chapel had not been built in Taiwan, but in the United States, it would have been built with wood although it was not to say that wood construction was impossible in Taiwan. After all, Guang-Yuan had constructed excellent supporting system and moldboards 3, if transportation of U-shaped steel could have been done, Luce Chapel with wood construction might have been carried out.

In other words, in order to compromise with the local conditions in terms of material production for proper concrete, transportation of concrete was indeed looser than wood materials. As a result, it was the transportation condition at the time determined the way the chapel was built in. That is to say, a “warm” wooden construction was replaced by RC construction which has a more modern image.

2. Graphics of Framework Drawing and Photos of Construction The available framework drawings were done by Fong and his assistants. Among those five pieces, structure engineer tried to show the whole framework with many faces of 2D drawing. However, the size of the supporting system only included that of height and the major axis but not the size of the cross axle.(see Fig.3 & Fig. 5.) The size of the cross axle had to be set out in a basketball court by the construction company before implementation (Lai, 1999).

By comparison of current framework drawing and construction photographs, differences could be found. The biggest one was that an inner moldboard, rather than the outer moldboard, was contained in the framework drawings and the supporting seemed to be exposed out of moldboards. When contrasting literal description and framework drawing, differences were even more obvious. Chen once mentioned that outer walls were supposed to feel like slight folds shaped by moldboards. It entails the existence of outer moldboards.

3 Every moldboard is different from each other.

Fig. 5. Cross-section of Fong’s Supporting system

Fig. 6. Outer Moldboards and Scaffolds

The inconsistencies, in fact, were caused by changes of construction methods. The original framework drawing was made for jet grouting which however would not fulfill the requirement of requested compressive strength due to the unsatisfactory experimental results of the construction company. Thickness was hard to control and cohesiveness of steel was under standard. As a result, with the permission of Tunghai University, Wu adopted pour grouting.

Changes of construction methods led to a situation that only the inner part of the chapel in the original framework drawing was feasible and outer frames had to be rebuilt by the construction company. Thickness of a curved surface had to be adjusted by two people from both the inside and outside.

Figure 9 Outer Scaffolds and Moldboards

3. Differences between viewpoints of designer and constructor Wu once wondered why this chapel looked like what it is. Chen replied, ”A Christian chapel is where God lives. God is poor, for he donates what he has to others. He therefore lives in a shabby house, like a hut where watermelon farmers stay with four pieces of straw covering it. However, Wu though the chapel in a different way. He said to his team members: Come on. We Taiwanese call it the temple of God; Americans call it church. It is for God, anyway. Let’s clean the sand and stones to make it look good. How is that?

The two statements reveal the differences between the designer and the constructer. This discrepancy continuously occurred in the construction process. For example, when moldboards of concrete were removed, outer walls were not completely smooth in surface because outer moldboards were not bendable. Instead, outer walls had curved surfaces, resulting from sectional grouting and curved surfaces of combined curved lines. Wu asked Chen about it and Chen however thought that curved lines symbolized shabbiness of God’s house which was out of maintenance and it was natural to see traces of human construction on it. Not long, colors of glaze tiles were inconsistent in the producing process. Wu was worried about this inconsistence. To Wu’s surprise, Chen responded:

This is what I want although no explicit indication was found in the design. God lives in this shabby hut, regardless of rain or storm. If we fix it so right, it won’t fit. Different colors of glaze tiles look like waves which are detached from concrete with parts sticking out and parts sinking.

Their conversations showed their distinctive views of this chapel. They both regarded the chapel as the residence of God but Chen interpreted through religious doctrines; that is, the chapel was a representation of concepts assisted by delicate language systems.

Wu’s construction team expressed the relationship between God and humans with devoted hearts and labor. Although Wu was neither a resident nor a user of this chapel, and he had no chance to approach space like it in his daily life, his remarks to his crew about the chapel were similar to artisans’ when building temples in that extraordinary labor was somehow symbolized and signalized.

Luce Chapel miraculously got in between eras and even developed an interface between architects who composed his ideas of space through complicated linguistic symbols and artisans who created non- linguistic symbols by their devotion of labor.

IV. Conclusion Based on the discussion of related literature, the first viewpoint indicates that the chapel is the best combination of “west” and “east” as well as that of “modern” and “tradition.” However, from the development of its scheme design (See Figure 1), the image of modernity of this chapel was brought out through its conoid shape and material. The adoption of conoid shape was a beautiful accident. And the use of concrete was because of the poor transportation condition.

From the view of construction process, the establishment of Luce Chapel in Taiwan was implemented not simply an import of overseas funds and new concepts of design. More than that, in the construction process, revisions to suit local conditions were constantly noticed. The revisions were made due to designers, structure technicians, construction company, or even accidental incidents. Therefore, the whole process was not following a linear line but a bumpy path into real implementation.

Perhaps if we meticulously investigated former studies of Taiwan architecture, a basis on interpreting its development with certain terms or related concepts was an overly simplification of the whole construction process, a joint of detailed consideration and plans. When analyzing buildings, we are supposed to accumulate difference sources of information through case studies or field studies. With constant and thorough examinations of revision processes, solid insights in depth can be formed.

Reference Chen, Chi-Kuan(1995), “relationship with Tunghai”, Tunghai University 40 th Anniversary , : Tunghai University Press. Fu, Chao-Qing(2003) “From The Chapel of Chi-Kuan Chen” The Mind of Architecture. : Garden City. Han, Bao-De(2003), “Architecture of Romance”. The Mind of Architecture. Taipei: Garden City. Huang, Ye-Qiang(2003), “Digital Conservation of Luce Chapel’s Working Drawing” The Mind of Architecture. Taipei: Garden City. Lai, Ren-Shuo(1999)A Tectonic Study on the Luce Chapel at Tunghai University. Master Thesis of Architecture Dep., Tunghai University, Taichung. Wu, Gen-Zong(1995), “The Man Who Built The House for God” Tunghai University 40 th Anniversary , Taichung: Tunghai University Press. Zhen, Hui-Mei(2006)Chen Chi-Kuan. Taipei: Three INK Press, pp.44-69. Harper, C.(1995), “Cyberspace and the City”, Town and Country Planning , Vol. 64, No. 8, pp.24-27.