Rethinking the Settlement Conservation Policy in Ma-zu: A Dynamic Analysis of Recent Local Subsidy Legislations and Community Housing Maintenance Practice

In this thesis, I discuss about the characteristics of traditional housing in Ma-Tzu, and thus try to realize how the subsidy policy works. Further more, I also try to figure out how the grass-root apprehends the policy under different causes, such as culture, market and personal demand.
As ‘The Rehabilitation and Renovation Regulation Autonomy of Traditional Housing Policy’ and the settlement preservation policy as concerned, they actually focus on the aesthetics much more than the historical context. First, the aesthetics thinking of the policy inherits the professional context of cultural heritage reservation in Taiwan. Second, the government expects to improve the traditional settlement scenery to benefit tourism development. Third, the policy emphasizes housing function improvement instead of issues of conservation. At the last, the development of the policy in the renovation professional market relates to the preferences of the craftsmen, which based on building materials and techniques.
Actually the Ma-Tzu authorities have never figure out what kind of cultural heritage will be pass to the coming generation. They have not considered the changeable or the unchangeable characteristic of Ma-Tzu. Besides certain architectural elements included in the regulations, such as the roof, the stone wall, the wooden window frame and doorframe, there are still some characteristics that should be took into consideration like the single house type, the double construction, the climate adjustments and the building pattern of the local craftsmen. The amount of the traditional houses that should be preserved or renewed has not been figured out so far. The original ideal policy became routine subsidy that profits the residents. Thus Ma-Tzu housing is apprehended only as symbols such as “ roof, stone wall and wooden frames”. At the moment, the concept of “keep-the- scene”, which is been simplified its cultural context, limits the preservation of traditional housing policy and the community based building practice.
In the thesis, I try to reconsider the relationships brought by the subsidy policy between the Ma-Tzu public sector and the local preservation forces, such as the community networks, the craftsmen and the popular with the new social mode of Nee and Ingram. According to the practice experience, the grassroots’ pattern overtook the policy system because the lack of integration and enforcement within the local government. By far, the grassroots’ regulations follow the paternalistic politics in Ma-Tzu instead of the up-down classes interaction supposed by Nee and Ingram.
“The Venice Charter” and “The Nara Document in Authenticity” have set up the point that the evaluation systems of cultural heritages should be built on the base of the consensus of the respective cultural societies. Accepting some of the traditional houses being dismantled in the poorer past days, we still find lots of problems in the current house renovation policy, which results in the disappearance of the fishery history, traditional building pattern and materials. It seems the change of the volume refers to the transformation of the settlement order. Obviously, all of these loss and changes about history and aesthetics can’t be controlled by a single architecture regulation or planning law. Here the role pled by the grassroots, such as the community based building, has to be taken account of.
In all, the government has to make the renovation market sound, to revise the contracting system, and to provide the management subsidized sufficient information at this stage. Most important, the government should integrate the force of community-based-building to develop the craftsmen building system in Ma-Tzu’s way.