Chi Hoa - Architecture

Architecture

The prison's main structure is a three-floor octagonal building, heavily influenced by the I Ching's eight trigrams theory. The whole building is actually formed by seven tile-roofed building lines and one flat-roofed north-facing building line which are named in turn following these names of I Ching's eight trigrams. The exterior side and the interior side were built differently. The exterior side is closed by air-holed brick walls and the interior side is opened by a roofless green space which the prisoners was separated from by iron pales. Later, eight building lines are divided as areas which named alphabetically as A area, B area, C area, D area, E area, F area, G area, and H area. These areas are combined into 6 zones which are named as AB zone, BC zone, ED zone, FG zone, AH zone, and ID zone. The zones contain 238 cells::

• The AB zone: 52 cells
• The ID zone: 17 cells
• The security zone (solitary confinement zone): 3 cells
• The D zone: 65 narrow cells
• The remaining zones: 101 cells.

In the center of the prison there is a tall and large water tower that doubles as the main watchtower, allowing the prison guards a clear view of all the prison cells. Apart from prison cells, the main building also has the facilities for prisoners, prison managers and guards.

Later, a Christian chapel and a Buddhist temple was built in the land surrounding the main building but they are all destroyed now. There also are small farmland lots and facilities such as a restaurant and toilets for prisoners in this land. The outermost part of the prison is separated from the populous residential areas by a squared brick wall plus barbed-wire fence. There are four watchtowers in the four corners of the walls.