Wenmenglou

A two-storey shophouse on Guisui Street built in 1924 and converted into a licensed brothel in 1941. Wenmenglou continued operating after the war as a public brothel within the Jiangshanlou (江山樓) red-light district under Bank of Taiwan trusteeship. When Taipei revoked licenses in January 1997 the workers based here organised a protest movement that became the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS, 日日春關懷互助協會); a two-year reprieve let it reopen in 1999 before the citywide ban shut it for good in March 2001. Designated a city monument in 2006, it was restored between 2020 and 2022 with the original rooms preserved as part of an exhibition on the history of legal sex work in Taipei. As of 2026 it is marked as “temporarily closed” on Google Maps.