Descrizione
“Made in Taiwan” oscillates between the description of a specifi c place and a broader critical refl ection regarding the relationship between space and modes of production. Taiwan stands as an exceptional case of a newly developed country where the disjunction between State and Society, along with a certain autonomy of economics from politics, favored explosive economic development and wide societal improvement. With the knowledge-based economy setting a new global paradigm of production, Taiwan offers an opportunity to refl ect on the spatial implications of such a paradigm. The precipitous process of modernisation was matched by the development of a distinctive landscape of dispersed Taiwanese industry – based on the redundancy of special tax-exempt zones and a continuous urbanisation – which materialised in the extensive occupation of the island’s western plain. Thirty years since successfully undertaking the course towards innovation-oriented growth, the country is today called upon to embrace a novel challenge: the acknowledgment of the urban nature of innovation environments. This implies a conception of innovation spaces beyond – or not only referring to – the canonical materialisation of campus-based science parks, but as environments charged with the complexity of urbanity. It is a call for deeper engagement with the design of an innovation environment on the scale of the district in an attempt to make the passage from campus to urban area.
