Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Monday, February 4, 2008 0:00 am TWN, By Michelle Hsu, Special to the China Post



	The rocky coast of Hoping Island constitutes a unique landscape in Keelung. (Courtesy of Keelung City Government) More Photos (4)

Sponsors
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.

Keelung to resume status as primary national gateway

The Marine Square will be a long wooden porch stretching from the existing square in front of the train station to the fishing port in Badouzih, covering over 2,000 pings (roughly 72,000 square feet) along Keelung harbor. The master architectural designer is Spain’s Vicente Guallart, who beat over 40 competitors to win the project and will bring European architectural style to Taiwan’s harbor city.

Alongside the porch, there will be many outdoor coffee stands and public seating for people to take a rest, sip coffee and enjoy the great harbor scenery. “Sometimes they will see eagles flying above the ocean,” Chang added. The eagle was named the city bird of Keelung because the harbor is often graced by eagles flying above the sea around the West Dock in the vicinity of the train station.

“The wooden porch will be a unique landscape in Keelung, marking a milestone construction project for the development of the harbor city,” the mayor stressed. “It will be an ideal place for people to enjoy an intimate relationship with the ocean.”

The project, with a budget of NT$250 million, is one of the four national gateway plans initiated by the central government. With the project due to be completed by the end of 2009, Keelung expects to resume its status as a primary national gateway in northern Taiwan.

National Museum of Marine & Technology

Another key project in Keelung’s effort to become a modern metropolitan city is the construction of the National Museum of Marine & Technology, scheduled to be completed in 2011. With a budget of NT$5 billion to be funded by the Executive Yuan, the museum billed as the largest public construction project for northern Taiwan in the early 21st century.

“The museum is of significant meaning to Keelung as it will be built as a multi-functional public place here,” noted Chang. It will become the most important marine research center in northern Taiwan, integrating existing resources of the National Oceanic University and other related academic institutions around the city.

“In this way it will highlight Keelung’s academic research status as a national marine research center,” said Chang.

Meanwhile, the museum will be surrounded by several satellite buildings, together making up a compound that will sit in a spacious theme park with distinctive native characteristics of its location—a fishing port in Badouzih.

Regarding the museum’s location midway between downtown Keelung and Jiufeng, Jinguashih and other popular scenic spots along northeastern coastline, Chang has instructed the transportation division under the city government to work out comprehensive traffic network plans to ensure convenient and smooth traffic around the museum when it’s inaugurated three or four years from now. The new traffic network, according to Chang, will not only bring prosperity to the area near the museum, but will also push forward overall development of the city as a whole.

1|2