A Comprehensive Industrial Supply Chain
Taiwan is home to a comprehensive industrial supply chain that includes traditional manufacturing and high-tech industries. Against this background, the Taipei area boasts a globally unique concentration of technological expertise covering every stage of industrial activity from R&D, materials development and design to prototyping and manufacturing, all within a radius of 20 km. The extensive manufacturing and technology background has built a solid foundation for Taipei’s industrial design talent. Four design universities – NTUST, SCU, NTUT, and TTU – are internationally recognized respectively as the first, third, fourth, and tenth best design schools in the APAC region by the red dot award: concept design.
As a result, Taipei universities’ performance in international design competitions, such as iF, red dot, G-Mark (Japan) and IDEA, continues to improve, with a new record set each year for awards received. In 2012, Taiwan products claimed 314 design awards and, to date, Taiwanese designers and firms have won nearly 1,700 awards. It’s no surprise then that Taiwan design has earned Taiwan an output value of US$400 million a year.
According to the 2010 Global Design Watch survey by Aalto University (Finland), Taiwan’s global design competitiveness is ranked 13th, and Taiwan is ranked the third highest in Asia for the amount that companies spend on R&D.
Taipei’s rich history in industrial design provides a kind of living timeline that can be experienced within the city. On the following pages we present a selection of classic industrial designs from different eras.