Taiwan Bricolage: a Study of Informal and Temporary Billboards in Affecting Architectural Facades

Any overseas visitors to the island nation, particularly those from North America or continental Europe, the visuality of cities in Taiwan will present itself as a phenomenological surprise. The elaborate advertisement billboards, with its exuberant textual, imagery and diverse constructional bricolage, despite appearing in a random way, lacking any internal logic or reason, is in fact, highly imaginative and “situationally organized”. The advertisement billboards, particularly those promoting condominiums signified by their own pastiche names derived from literary fables, have proliferated across localities adjacent government led science park developmental areas. The billboards, measuring in different dimensions and configurations are literally invading, like a swarm of birds in the urban landscape. In their parasitic formation, they are becoming a type of facade contingent upon the context which they find host in. “Coincidental Architectural Facades” (CAF) differs from those seen in other hypermodern cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore, whereby signages in these cities are often carefully positioned, designed and integrated with highly controlled and technology induced systems, such as LED displays or others (Wilson & Casper, 2016). CAFs seen in Tainan and other tertiary cities of Taiwan, are more closely related to the practice of “Bricolage” as identified by Levi Strauss which are highly dependent on circumstances. As such, installers need to improvise between site, content, billboard dimension, situational factors, regulatory constraints, economy before developing an effective and low cost responsive. This visual phenomenon is particularly memorable in three reemergent cities Tainan, Taichung and Hsinchu. The billboard comes in different shapes, sizes, colors, construction methods, technologies, displaying a wide variety of contents. It is a unique Taiwan Bricolage that deserves greater attention and academic research. Building upon visual, aesthetic and regulatory factors, the research aims to study and analyze the billboard’s spatial and temporal impact against those common design solutions for contemporary building facades, designed by licensed architects so as to understand its impact in affecting both the public and consumers at large.