Kinoshita Seigai Residence

A two-storey house of stone and brick, likely built late in the Qing dynasty, rented from 1923 by the Japanese ink painter Kinoshita Seigai (木下靜涯), who had been stranded in Taiwan in 1919 on his way to see the Ajanta cave murals in India. From its slope overlooking the mouth of the Tamsui River and Mount Guanyin, Kinoshita hosted Taiwanese painters such as Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖) until his repatriation in 1946. The house later served as a dormitory for tax office staff, was registered as a historic building in 2010 after years of neglect, and reopened in 2021 as a small museum of Kinoshita’s life and work in Tamsui.