Chen Ren-He

Chen Ren-he (陳仁和; 1922–1989), a native of Jibei, Penghu, is one of the few architects studied in Japan and is also one of the first generation of architects in post-war Taiwan.

Profile

Chen was born in Jibei, Penghu and migrated to Pingtung with his family. After graduating from Kaohsiung High School, he attended at the architecture department, Waseda University, in Japan and returned to Taiwan after graduation. In 1951, he established an architect firm in Kaohsiung. In 1967, he won the Top 10 outstanding architects of the first session of Golden Tripod Award for Architecture in the Republic of China for his design of the wave building of San Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics（三信家商）.

Architectural style

Mr. Chen coincided with the general trend of the international style of modernist architecture in the 1950s. He realized the loss of local regionalism and Taiwanese architectural characteristics, and developed an architectural creation style that was both expressive and local, which had matured in the early 1960s. to maturity. Most of his works are distributed in Kaohsiung City today, and he has completed as many as 100 works in his career.

As far as we know, his earliest large-scale architectural works are various new projects designed for the Fengshan Branch of the Provincial Kaohsiung Commercial and Vocational School（省立高雄商業職業學校鳳山分校）. As he was a devout Buddhism believer, he also participated in the design of many temple or ancestral hall projects.

Representative works

Kaohsiung Buddhist Hall (1955)

Hsinchu Yi Tung Temple Spirit Pagoda (1957)

Dominican Donggang Catholic Church (1960, in cooperation with West German engineer Rainer L. Nevcsh)

Kaohsiung San Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics Student Activity Center (1963)

Kaohsiung wave building of San Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics (1964)

Kaohsiung Datong Elementary School Auditorium (1963)

Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Commercial High School(1963)

Kaohsiung Wanlong Theater (1964)

Spirit Pagoda of Hai hui Si in Keelung (1967)

Fengshan Farmers Association Building (1969)

The Main Hall of Longhu Nunnery in Dagangshan, Kaohsiung (1970)

News Taiwan Apartment Building (1970)

Revenue Service Office, Kaohsiung City, Qishan Branch (1972)

Penghu Jibei Kuan Yin Temple (1972)

Main Hall of Tengqing Temple, Kaohsiung (1973)

Kaohsiung Lim Khia Memorial Tower (1977)

Fengshan Farmers Association Meat Market (1976)