Living Heritage - Family House, the Memory of Family and the Interpretation and Representation

• Main Authors: Hu, Chia-Chun, 胡佳君
• Other Authors: Huang, Jan-Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/38mpah

碩士 === 國立臺北藝術大學 === 博物館研究所 === 105 === In recent years, “History” has been appearing in our daily lives in the forms of cultural movements or cultural expression. The content of history has also changed from serious academic studies to matters more closely related to daily life or those involving more diverse topics. One goal of these changes is to put the general public in touch with history in simple, easy ways, and, as the rights to speak and to interpret are givens, the public will also have a chance to become the writer of history. Among many different channels and approaches, this paper adopted an increasingly popular concept dubbed“the preservation and repurposing of old houses” to probe the ways the public becomes in contact with and involved with history in daily life and to examine both how the public understands history and how they use their old houses to talk about history. In the 1990s, Taiwan initiated a series of movements about cultural governance aiming to inform the consciousness of local culture and to enhance local identification. Historical discourse shifted its emphasis to discourses that have “locales” or “residents” as the subject, cultivating and guiding people to partake in local culture movements and the writing of local history in their daily life. Following this trend, local historic environments and architecture that contain public history and memories of life have gradually merited attention and been included in the realm of historical preservation. With understanding and preservation, space and cultural scenery have shaped the special meanings of a place and become a way of constructing local identities. The local culture movement of the “preservation and repurposing of old houses” has been implemented in different forms in different places. A further step in this form of new cultural practices is to include private houses in the realm of preserving history, the main component of which is public participation, and the goal of which is to construct a living environment. The old houses have permitted the local history and past living memories to be preserved, and through the process, the place is now reassessed and a new local cultural identity constructed. This study integrated the perspective of “Public History“ with that of the development of the contemporary “the preservation and repurposing of old houses”, and the author conducted a case study on “GU Creative Shop “ and “No.40, Xia Street. Studio“ in Daxi, Taoyuan. When the family descendants preserved and reused their old house, they used their living memory and family history as the themes to manage their family house for the public, transforming this daily living space into a place where history is construed and re-appears. By means of literature review, interviews, observation, and display analyses, this study conducted an in-depth depiction and analysis on the business models, the identity and stance of writing history, the ways to describe history, and the historical content presented, so as to analyze the form and meaning of preserving and utilizing family houses as a kind of “Public History.“ The family descendants presented their re-acquaintance with and interpretation of their old houses and family history, while external participants established their re-imagining of the space and place identity of the old house through their personal visiting experiences.