To say that an architect is an artist in constant pursuit of
perfection may not be as apt as to describe him as a keen observer of society: his work must not only reflect his own style and design concepts, it has to truly fuse with the urban environment, has to become an integral part of the cityscape and
vibrate with the pulse of human civilization.
Chan: Mr. Lin, you have previously worked in the United States
for twenty years, have been back in Taiwan for ten, the last nine of which as the head of your own architectural firm. After all this time, what are your observations on architects and architecture in Taiwan?

Exterior Space Design, National Museum of Marine Science and Technology 國立海洋科技博物館, to be completed in 2010

Exterior Space Design, National Museum of Marine Science and Technology 國立海洋科技博物館, to be completed in 2010

Design Plan, National Museum of Marine Science and Technology 國立海洋科技博物館, to be completed in 2010

Lin: Taiwan is definitely facing some bottlenecks in terms of spatial design. And if we don’t find some new approaches and solutions, then it is very possible that ten years from now we’ll still be where we are now, and nothing will have changed. That’s why I’m constantly in search of a new way of doing things, a new direction for development that’s different from what we’re seeing everywhere at the moment. Being in the business of architectural design, it is very obvious to me that architecture in Taiwan, taken on the whole, is in a crisis. In fact, everyone can see that there is an acute need for improvement. But, leaving architecture as such aside for the moment, and looking at the developments and achievements in interior design, I find that I can say with much confidence that Taiwan’s designers are right up to par with their counterparts in Tokyo or London. 

   During my time abroad I noticed that in most countries there is no clear demarcation line between architecture and interior design, so I’m often wondering: what’s the problem here, really? Since I started my own firm nine years ago, we’ve been taking a very simple approach, basically taking all kinds of cases, no matter if they involved architecture or interior design. We’d always been doing both, and it was no big deal. But one day, in my office, one of our clients said something that made me realize how things weren’t that simple, even though most people in the business were not aware of it. This client had commissioned some interior design work,....