The Tainan 400 event is an important milestone in Taiwan’s history, and it also marks a new chapter in the story of Tainan. To celebrate the city’s first time hosting the 2024 Creative Expo Taiwan, the Tainan City Government hosted three major events at three respective historical sites: the Zeelandia Night Market at Anping Fort, the Representing Fort Provintia - Nighttime Light Projection display at Chikan Tower, and the very first nighttime tour at Tainan Confucius Temple during the Expo period. The activities not only promote the new nighttime light designs at Tainan’s historical sites but also provide new tourist destinations for visitors to rediscover the city.
Light environment redesigning has become a trend in recent years. The goal is to use light as a medium to enhance urban nighttime scenery and create nighttime economic value while saving energy and elevating urban visual aesthetics. Between 2019 and 2023, the Tainan Municipal Administration of Culture Heritage rolled out two phases of light environment redesigning in historical neighborhoods. The project overhauled the nighttime lighting at historical venues including the Yeh Shih-Tao Literature Memorial Museum, Catholic Window Press, Tainan Shinto Shrine Office, Confucius Temple Historical Area, Tainan Prefecture Council, and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, giving these spaces different atmospheres during day and night.
As the year 2024 is also the year of Tainan 400, the Tainan Municipal Administration of Culture Heritage continued to lobby for budget from the Central Government and was eventually given over NTD 60 million for the project. The Administration then launched the Tainan 400 City Light Environment Redesigning Project (2024 – 2026). The objective is to redesign the lighting on cultural asset structures as well as their surrounding areas to further enhance the beauty of the architecture. Locations covered in this project include four national heritage sites (Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple, Tainan Grand Mazu Temple/Prince Ning Jing’s Mansion, Tainan Confucius Temple, and Taiwan Fucheng City Wall South Gate Section remains) and several special municipal historic sites such as The First Great Emperor Guan Temple’s former main hall, Kaiji Lingyo Temple, Guang’an Temple, former Tainan Prefecture Hall, former Tainan He Tong Building, former Tainan Patriotic Women’s Association, Tainan Xingji Temple, and Grand Guanyin pavilion.
The Tainan Municipal Administration of Culture Heritage expressed that hopefully, this project will let local cultural assets and neighboring areas spark more inspiration, and the Administration looks forward to using this as a demo case for future lighting redesigning projects on more historical buildings. With better nighttime lighting designs in the city, the public can more readily discover Tainan’s fascinating stories from the previous four centuries as they stroll through the old neighborhoods.