Beitou Museum

The Beitou Museum was formerly the "Kazan Hotel," built in 1921 (Taisho 10th year). This Japanese-style wooden structure retains typical Japanese architectural details such as a spacious great hall (Ohiro-ma), intricate ranma carvings, and traditional shoji doors and windows. Perched halfway up the mountain, it offers splendid views, not only overlooking the Beitou valley but also connecting with the distant Datun, Guanyin, and Danfeng Mountains, forming a picturesque landscape. Surrounded by gardens and immersed in Beitou's misty hot spring scenery, it became one of the leading luxury hot spring hotels during Beitou's rapid development in the 1920s and 1930s. After the war, the government took over the building and used it as a dormitory for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was not until 1965 that it was sold to a private owner as a personal villa, and it became a popular filming location for movies in the 1960s and 1970s. In late 1983, Mr. Chang Chun-ming, who had once run past and fallen in love with this old Japanese-style house in Beitou, decisively leased it and began restoration. In 1984, it was officially established as the "Taiwan Folk Arts Museum." From 1987, as the collection grew richer, it was renamed the "Beitou Museum," dedicated to collecting artifacts of Taiwanese Han Chinese, indigenous peoples, and folk crafts. In 1998, it was designated a municipal historic site by the Taipei City Government. To ensure the building's long-term preservation, a five-year restoration project was launched in 2002 through public-private cooperation. In 2008, it reopened for cultural promotion under a mixed-management model, and this century-old house, as if "reborn," became an important example of cultural heritage preservation in Taiwan. Currently, the museum houses over five thousand artifacts, ranging from local Beitou hot spring historical materials (such as Beitou-yaki pottery, hotel ledgers, and picture postcards) to Han Chinese life ritual objects, indigenous textiles, wood carvings, and embroidered items, showcasing a rich tapestry of multicultural integration. The museum also preserves the spatial aesthetics of the original hotel, such as the Taishi-ro (princely pavilion), engawa (veranda), and tatami rooms, allowing visitors to experience the elegance of Japanese wooden architecture up close. Additionally, the museum treasures "A Tour of the Eight Fortunes of Kazan" by the Japanese colonial era painter Hatozu, which uses the Eight Gods of Fortune to symbolize "fortune arriving at one's door," further depicting the splendid scenes of the Kazan Hotel hosting guests and joyful banquets in its heyday.