Laosong Elementary School

One of the oldest elementary schools in Taiwan, founded in 1896 by the Governor-General’s Office and initially housed in local temples. It moved to its present site as Bangka Public School (艋舺公學校), taking the name Laosong (老松) in 1922. After the original wooden buildings succumbed to termites, the school was rebuilt in 1920 in its current form, a symmetrical reinforced-concrete layout enclosing a central playground, with arcade corridors typical of school design in the mid-colonial period. The school hōanden (奉安殿), a repository for the imperial portrait and rescript built next to the playground in 1929, partly survives, along with a statue of Ninomiya Sontoku (二宮尊德) and a Shōwa era graduation memorial stone. The school was designated a municipal monument in 1999, and part of the former campus grounds now form the adjacent Bopiliao Historic Block.