Sailing Castle: Ren’ai by Cheng Tsung FENG Design Studio — A Poetic Dialogue Between Architecture, Art, and Memory

Reimagining the City as a Fleet of Dreams

In Sailing Castle: Ren’ai, Taiwanese artist and architect Cheng Tsung FENG continues his celebrated Sailing Castle series, where cities are poetically transformed into fleets of ships gathered upon a shimmering sea. Through this series, FENG captures the rhythms of urban life and the poetic silhouettes of architecture, transforming static structures into living vessels that carry collective memory across time and space.

This installation, showcased at the Taiwan Lantern Festival, translates the architectural character of Ren’ai Village—a historic neighborhood in Taipei—into a striking visual narrative of sails, light, and structure. Each element invites viewers to see their city as both a landscape and a voyage.

Ren’ai Village: A Modernist Heritage

Ren’ai Village, developed in the 1970s, stands as a testament to Taiwan’s modernist architectural movement. The neighborhood’s clean lines, geometric grids, and Bauhaus-inspired façades represent an era when Taiwanese architects embraced international design philosophies while maintaining local sensibilities.

Cheng Tsung FENG pays tribute to this architectural legacy by reinterpreting its mid-century aesthetic through the metaphor of sailing. His Sailing Castle: Ren’ai installation captures the essence of these buildings—rigid yet rhythmic—and transforms them into sculptural “sails” that rise and sway in harmony, as though the city itself were preparing to set sail.

Structure, Light, and Symbolism

Constructed primarily from wood, the installation features layered frameworks that resemble a field of sails unfurling toward the horizon. The composition balances vertical and horizontal elements, mirroring the grid-like repetition of Ren’ai Village’s apartment façades while suggesting the organic motion of ships at sea.

During the day, the installation appears as a sculptural abstraction—a dialogue between architecture and nature. By night, dynamic lighting brings it to life. Soft illumination shimmers randomly between the sails, evoking the gentle glow of windows that define urban life. Each flicker represents moments of human experience—work, rest, solitude, and community—woven together into the shared fabric of the city.

A Living Landmark in Dunren Park

Installed within Dunren Park, a cherished public space in Taipei, Sailing Castle: Ren’ai is more than an art piece—it is a social and emotional landmark. The installation invites visitors to walk through its wooden corridors, pause beneath its illuminated sails, and reflect on the relationship between their everyday surroundings and the broader narrative of the city.

Here, FENG transforms public space into a ritual site where personal memory converges with collective history. The artwork becomes a stage for introspection and connection—a place where architecture, art, and humanity intersect.

A Journey of Departure and Return

“To board the ship, to raise the sail, to meet the wind, and to set forth toward the sea”—with these poetic gestures, Cheng Tsung FENG encapsulates the spirit of Sailing Castle: Ren’ai. The installation speaks to both departure and return, to the cyclical rhythm of urban life and personal journey.

All photographs are works of Fixer Photographic Studio