《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》Asia’s first salt apartment makes debut

VERSATILE SEASONING: After the first life-sized rooms carved from salt in the region were revealed, the Taiwan Salt Museum is thinking about constructing a salt hotel

By Liu Wan-chun and Sean Lin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

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A life-size apartment sculpted from 30 tonnes of salt, complete with all the furniture one would expect to find in a typical home, made its debut on Saturday at the Salt and Sand Sculpture Art Festival in Greater Tainan.

Visitors to the apartment are bound to find themselves pleasantly surprised when they see the Tachibanas, a household consisting of Father, Mother, Mikan and Yuzuhiko, who are the lead characters of the popular Japanese anime series Atashin’chi, all sculpted from salt

The apartment is divided into four rooms. Visitors first see the kitchen, with Mother preparing a meal. To her left is a living room, where Mikan and Yuzuhiko relax, featuring a sofa, a table, a telephone and a TV set — all sculpted to real-life dimensions.

Moving along, visitors see a room featuring a salt bed and desk, as well as a bathroom, where Father can be seen bathing in a bathtub with a toilet and a sink beside it.

Chen Han-chung （陳漢中）, creator of the salt sculpture, said he encountered many difficulties working on the piece, because the humidity often caused the sculpture to collapse, crack or become damp.

After repeated experiments and adjustments, Chen finally overcame the challenges and was able to finish the work, which required twice as much time and money as his regular sculptures.

Taiwan Salt Museum curator Shih Rui-hsien （施瑞賢） said visitors should not touch the sculpture, as the salt was still comparatively moist and would take time to harden, adding that they can take photographs of the room from outside a cordoned-off area which was set up to safeguard the exhibit.

He said that the museum would research methods to build a hotel from salt that can accommodate visitors, so that they can experience being in an environment surrounded by salt.

Southwest Coast Scenic Area director Cheng Jung-feng （鄭榮峰） said the salt apartment is the first of its kind ever to be sculpted anywhere in Asia.

He said he hopes that the exhibition would provide the public with an understanding that apart from being a seasoning, a detergent and a substance believed to dispel bad luck, salt can play an even more important part in our daily lives now that it has also been applied to interior design.

The salt apartment can be seen on the second floor of the Taiwan Salt Museum in Cigu District （七股）, Greater Tainan.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES