Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun offers her condolences on the passing of Cheng Mei (陳邁), a famous architect and a 2014 winner of the National Award for Arts who died April 11 of pneumonia at the age of 90.
The Minister praised Cheng for the "aesthetic values of our contemporary era" in his architectural works that had won him the National Award for Arts and his diligent efforts in leading Taiwan's architectural community to come up with reform proposals that had made him a role model for the industry.
Born in 1930 in Shanghai, Cheng came to Taiwan alone in 1949. After a series of challenges, Cheng finally gained entry to the National Cheng Kung University to study architecture. Shortly after graduating from Cheng Kung in 1962, Cheng went to Switzerland and the United States for advanced studies and completed a master's degree in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He came back to Taiwan to become a teacher in 1971. Four years later, he and fellow architect Philip Fei (費宗澄) co-founded the architecture firm Fei & Cheng Associates (宗邁建築師事務所). In 2004, he founded the architectural community ARCHI-REFORM (建築改革社). He received the first R.O.C. Outstanding Architect Award from the Ministry of the Interior in 1995, the 13th Golden Architectural Award of the R.O.C. from the General Association of Chinese Culture in 1997, NCKU Distinguished Alumni Award from National Cheng Kung University in 2012, and the 18th National Awards for Arts in 2014.
Cheng's architectural works include the National Museum of Natural Science (國立自然科學博物館), the National Taiwan University Hospital (台大醫院), the Taiwan Adventist Hospital (台安醫院), and the National Taiwan Sport University Arena (林口體育館). His ARCHI-REFORM group has also spearheaded many reforms in Taiwan's architectural education, architect examination systems, and technical certification methods.
The Ministry of Culture will apply for a presidential citation to honor the late leader of Taiwan's architectural policy reforms.