The Governor-General Hot Springs
During the onsen’s construction, Japan invaded China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The Japanese authorities urged Taiwanese to use bricks in camouflage colors to hinder air raids. These colors–light green, beige, and brown–were often used from the late 1920s through the early 1940s. A kiln in Peitou specially produced bricks of these colors, known as “13-channel bricks” for their rippled surface, designed to reduce buildings’ visibility to enemy aircraft by reducing the bricks’ reflectiveness.
Representative buildings from that period include Taipei City Hall (now Zhongshan Hall), Taipei High School (now National Taiwan Normal University), and Taipei Imperial University (now National Taiwan University). Those buildings were all the work of Ide Kaoru, the influential chief architect of the Governor-General’s Office who advocated “localization” of Taiwan’s architecture. As the Governor-General Onsen was built with the same sort of green 13-channel bricks as the Taipei City Hall, which was completed in 1936 and was also a public building, it is assumed that Ide had a hand in its design.
This article is highly recommended, particularly for language students, as the text is presented in English, Japanese, and both simplified and traditional Chinese.