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  • 【Address】No. 21, Gongyuan Road, West Central District, Tainan City.
    【Brief Introduction】
    The Tainan Weather Station, also known as 'Hu Jiao Guan' (Pepper Tube), is the pre-decessor of the Central Weather Bureau of Tainan.
    【History】
    The Tainan Weather Station is the rightful predecessor of the Central Weather Bureau of Tainan. During the Japanese occupation, weather stations were located in namely, Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Hengchun, Penghu, Taidong, and Hualian. Kaohsiung has a marine observatory and Alishan has an observatory of its own. In addition, the nine lighthouses of Taiwan function also as a weather observatory. Among these weather facilities, the Tainan Weather Station is cherished as one of the longest-standing station, not to mention the only historic weather station left.

    【Features】
    The building itself was constructed based on its functions, thus it does not exhibit a unique sense of style. Similar to the weather observatories in Taipei and Penghu, it was constructed with a focus on the runnings of a weather observatory.
    The building is spatially arranged to accommodate three concentric circular struc-tures each with a diameter of about half a meter. The first and second of these struc-tures form a corridor. The space between the second and third structures is used for official processing purposes. Extending from the structure, load-bearing walls are di-vided into several parts. The central east to west direction form a passageway and the north to south direction has four interconnected arched doorways. There are two dome-shaped doors and the main body of the structure extends into a long round tower, the top of which is where equipments for weather observations are located. Inside the tower, there is a cast iron ladder, 60cm in thickness, spiralling upwards. The tower itself has four arched windows.
    In terms of style, the central tower is the most conspicuous, and is known to the locals as 'Hu Jiao Guan' (Pepper Tube) which is approximately two-storey high. The rest of the structure is single-storey with the central tower protruding from the roof. The roof tiles are in an octadecagon arrangement. The roof eaves consist of wooden brackets that connect to the building wall.
    The base of the building wall is composed of granolithic paving and stone materials. The beams are also granolithic and the load-bearing walls have overlapping granolith-ic paving and bricks. Tannish-colored bricks make up the rest of the walls which ac-commodate arched windows. A dome-shaped door forms the main entryway.
    In order to coordinate with weather observation equipments, the structure of the Tai-nan Weather Station exhibits a rather unique round tube style. The whole structure is composed of three layers of concentric circular structures, circularly altered with the innermost layer extending to form the tower, the top of which contains various equipments. The centre and middle layers form a corridor, while the middle and the outer layer offer space used as office premises. Other than the central tower, the roof tiles are arranged in an octadecagon manner. The base of the building wall is composed of granolithic paving while tannish-colored bricks make up the rest of the walls.