Scholar uses 147 slides to 'preserve' Taipei's buildings

TAIPEI-A single slide might not look like much when fit in a 5x5 cm of cardboard that is slightly bigger than a piece of jigsaw puzzle. Yet a total of 147 such slides piece together memories of architecture in Taipei.

"In the 19th century, a lot of Taiwan's camphor was exported to Europe, not to make mothballs but rather celluloid film," says Li Chienlang, a Taiwan architecture scholar, when describing the history of slides and his personal experiences of using slides to capture some of Taipei's oldest buildings.

A collection of 147 slides, all photographed by Li between 1970 and 2010, is being exhibited until April 2019 at Museum 207 in Dadaocheng, a historic neighborhood in western Taipei.

Slides, known as positive color film, better preserve the vivid colors of the original images compared to the negatives that are more commonly used. Thus, they are considered a better choice for architecture photography.

But Li remembers his early days of taking photos as a costly experience.

"A camera cost me three months' salary, not to mention the film and the cost to develop the photos."

It was also time-consuming.

"Very often I only took two photos of each building. I had to stand there and look long and hard before I pressed the shutter," Li says.

"Pressing the shutter often caused my heart to race because you didn't know if the photo would be a good one."

Old memories

The collection features some famous old buildings in Taipei and important moments in the city's architectural history, such as the old Taipei train station being demolished in 1985.

Li Ling-Ling, who was born and raised in the Dadaocheng district, was one of the earliest visitors to the exhibition. And she found photos of her primary and middle schools.

"This is the Red Building, as we called it, my alma mater. It was taken down years ago," says Li, who is now in her 50s, while pointing to a photo on the wall.

For the 20-and 30-somethings, the slides are not entirely obsolete.

"When I was in school, the teachers used slides in class. But this is seldom done today," says Lin Shih-feng from Taipei.

Lin spent quite some time in the room where the slides were being projected onto a big screen. "It was very touching to see that some buildings still look the same as they did in the old photos. They have been well taken care of," says Lin.

In fact, the venue of the exhibition, Museum 207, was renovated from a pharmacy built in 1962. The district, Dadaocheng, dates back to the 1850s and is full of historic landmarks.

"I don't see nostalgia as a waste of time," says Li, the architectural scholar.

"With these pictures, we try to restore the truth, trace back history and analyze and discuss a story. Stories are necessities. Without stories, human civilization is nothing."

Like vinyl records

Although slides can preserve colors for decades, they need to be kept safe from mildew and in an environment with strictly monitored temperature and humidity control, says Li, who adds that this type of photography will not disappear.

"I recently visited a record shop in the UK that was selling newly-pressed vinyl records because some people think the sound of the CD does not have much depth," he says.

For him, like vinyl, slides have a distinct charm giving the format a good chance of surviving in this new digital era.