Introduction to the Memorial Museum

In August 2003, the Executive Yuan issued a directive letter ordering the Memorial Foundation to prepare and plan in advance for task changes after it finished compensating the victims. After two years, another directive letter was issued to endorse the founding of a "national memorial museum for the February 28 Incident" and to instruct that the museum should be planned and set up as a commemorative, educational, and historical/cultural venue.

At a meeting regarding the establishment of a national memorial museum for the February 28 Incident that was hosted by the Executive Yuan and attended by related ministries and departments on July 5, 2006, the following conclusion was made: "In the research conducted by the Memorial Foundation of 228, the original Taiwan Education Association Building has been recommended by the families of the victims due to its historical relevance and cultural and educational significance to the February 28 Incident. A national memorial museum for the February 28 Incident is to be set up by the Ministry of Education and its operation and management is to be authorized to the Memorial Foundation of 228."

Having been through a third, fourth and fifth term board of directors and six years of intensive preparations with support from the government and the wider community, the National 228 Memorial Museum was officially established on February 28, 2007. That April, the Ministry of Education began renovations on the historic building that had been selected to house the museum. In September 2009, the renovations were completed and the site was turned over to the Ministry of Interior, before being transferred to the Memorial Foundation of 228. In 2010, a historic building reuse project was implemented on the future site of the memorial museum. The project was finished on January 16, 2011, and the museum was officially opened to the public on February 28, 2011.

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The rationale for the museum's location: the building's cultural context at the time of construction and historical relevance to the February 28 Incident

The building where the National 228 Memorial Museum is currently located was once called the Taiwan Education Association Building during the Japanese colonial period. Although the building was finished in the 1930s, a decade when the Great Depression impacted the United States and the rest of the world, the architectural landscape in Taiwanese cities was increasingly influenced by the modernist style that was prevalent at the time. Other famous buildings that were built in the same decade include New York's Empire State Building (1931) and Fallingwater (1935), both of which are still regarded as architectural masterpieces. This global trend of modernization formed the background of the impending conflict between modernized Taiwanese society and the feudal, autocratic ideas that were forced on it by the new Chinese Nationalist regime, and was also one of the major factors leading to the outbreak of the February 28 Incident. Today, as we reflect upon the incident, the historic building where the National 228 Memorial Museum is located can help us revisit the atmosphere of the time when the February 28 Incident took place.

The Second World War ended with Japanese emperor Hirohito announcing Japan's surrender to the Allies on August 15, 1945. Following the creation of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly, the grand, spacious Taiwan Education Association Building was soon chosen as the meeting place for its members. The thirty members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly, including Huang Chao-chin, Li Wanju, Kuo Kuo-chi, Lin Hsien-tang, and Wang Tien-teng, all submitted questions to the Chief Executive, Chen Yi, at this venue. However, despite being the highest legislature on the island, the Taiwan Provincial Assembly was overshadowed by the Chief Executive, who was much more powerful than the previous Governor-Generals of Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. The situation was worsened by the fact that the members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly could only exercise oversight via parliamentary interpellation, or questioning sessions.

Without any legal power to pass resolutions, the Taiwan Provincial Assembly could not provide checks and balances against Chen Yi. Moreover, the impacts of the Chinese Civil War and the Nationalist Government's ignorance of parliamentary democracy meant that the establishment of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly was merely a perfunctory gesture to satisfy the Taiwanese people's desire for self-rule. After the outbreak of the February 28 Incident in 1947, of the 30 members of the Provincial Assembly, two were incarcerated and two went missing, while the remainder were either wanted by the government or temporarily left politics, leaving the Taiwan Provincial Assembly functionally dissolved. This historical context of the February 28 Incident and the building's historical and cultural significance are both major reasons behind the choice of the National 228 Memorial Museum's location.

Without doubt, the establishment of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly was an important testament to the Taiwanese people's post-war pursuit of democratic politics. Taiwanese social elites' expectation of a bright future for the island and their fervent pursuit of democracy is evidenced by the fact that there were 1,180 people registered as candidates in the election of the 30-member Taiwan Provincial Assembly. In addition, the United States Information Agency in Taiwan also played an important historical role in introducing knowledge of Western freedom, democracy, art, and culture to an island ruled by martial law, and enriched the significance of this building in terms of the heritage preservation, re-narration and re-utilization of the site.