The Modern Style of Pi-Lu Buddhist Monastery and the Lu Family in the Japanese Colonial Period

Located on Mt. Tai-pin in Houli, Taichung, the Pi-Lu Monastery was founded in 1927 by a local powerful family, the Lu family of Shengang. Serving as a place for female members of the Lu family to practice Buddhism and as a relaxing manor for the whole family, the Pi-Lu Monastery is generally considered to be a private family monastery. The Lus, who aimed to become highly westernized intellectuals in the Japanese colonial period, were eager to make use of modern architectural styles in their own residential houses and religious buildings. Consequently, the main hall, wing-rooms, main gate, and courtyard of the monastery, and even the pagoda constructed after 1945, all feature western architecture, representing the progress and modernity of the Shengang Lu family. During the Japanese colonial period, the Pi-Lu Monastery was also recognized as an open Buddhist nunnery. Inspired by the Buddhist monk Lin Jue-Li’s promotion of Buddhist female education in the 1920s, the sisters of the Lu family tried to establish an ideal venue for females to practice Buddhism and attend educational activities. This ambition must have had quite an impact on the initial architecture design for the Pi-Lu Monastery, which was a two-story building with a spacious interior similar to a western hall. In short, the western style, new building techniques, and space utilization of the Pi-Lu Monastery not only met the needs of its patrons and supervisors but also reflected the taste for modern civilization at that time. Thus the architecture of the Pi-Lu Monastery is quite extraordinary among the Buddhist buildings constructed during the middle colonial period in Taiwan.