Main campus
The main campus of National Taiwan University occupies 114.72 hectares (283.5 acres) in the Da'an District of Taipei, with its principal entrance at 1 Roosevelt Road, Section 4. The site includes most of the university's colleges and administrative buildings. It houses some of the country's best-preserved examples of red brick Japanese colonial architecture.
The campus developed from the grounds of an agricultural and forestry school established by the Government-General of Taiwan in 1919, which was successively reorganized before being incorporated into Taihoku Imperial University in 1928. Much of the historic core constructed after the imperial university's establishment survives along Royal Palm Boulevard, an east–west avenue that forms the principal axis of the campus. Its original plan was influenced by American Beaux-Arts, Renaissance, and neoclassical planning principles, with a Baroque axis and terminal vistas organizing the central campus. Royal Palm Boulevard itself was laid out around 1932, when horticultural faculty and farm staff planted royal palms and other tropical and native vegetation throughout the grounds. The boulevard forms three plazas along its axis—University Plaza, Fu Bell Plaza, and the Main Library plaza—which altogether function as student venues.
Several buildings that predate or date from the early years of Taihoku Imperial University remain prominent features of the campus. Of the campus buildings built after World War II, the majority are a hybrid of Chinese and Western architecture, 20 of which were designed by architect Wang Da-hong. The Administration Building, completed in 1926 for the predecessor Taihoku Advanced Academy of Agronomy and Forestry, is a Taipei city-designated heritage site constructed primarily of red brick and distinguished by a portico supported by four Corinthian columns. Across Royal Palm Boulevard, the College of Liberal Arts building was completed in 1929 for the Faculty of Literature and Politics and is another city-designated heritage site. Its exterior combines ribbed tile with Romanesque elements, including arched windows and doorways, gables, and ornamental corner tiles characteristic of the imperial-era buildings lining the boulevard. The former main library was begun in 1929, with its stacks and reading room completed in 1931, and now houses the Gallery of NTU History.
The campus continued to expand following the reorganization of the imperial university as National Taiwan University in 1945, gradually introducing modernist forms alongside the earlier eclectic architecture. The Civil Engineering Building, completed in 1955, was among the first postwar structures to depart substantially from the earlier campus vocabulary, using horizontal lines associated with the International Style rather than the stronger vertical emphasis of the buildings along Royal Palm Boulevard. The First Student Activity Center, designed by Taiwanese architect Wang Da-hong in 1961 and completed in the early 1960s, combined modern construction with features drawn from traditional Chinese architecture, including red, black, and gold surfaces, courtyards, porticos, and folded roofs.A renewed period of campus planning beginning around the 1980s sought to reconcile later development with the surviving imperial-era plan. The present Main Library, completed in 1998 at the eastern end of Royal Palm Boulevard, contains five stories above ground and one below and incorporates arched windows and other architectural motifs derived from the earlier campus buildings. More recent additions have introduced contemporary architecture into the historic campus plan, including the College of Social Sciences complex designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito. Its Koo Chen-Fu Memorial Library is enclosed on three sides by floor-to-ceiling glass and supported internally by 88 irregularly arranged columns, with curved bamboo bookshelves intended to give the reading room the appearance of a grove. The Humanities Building, one of the newest major buildings near the entrance to campus, uses exposed concrete and a perforated brick façade facing Royal Palm Boulevard, with large-span bridges connecting portions of the structure. In 2024, the building received first place in the public construction and space revitalization category of Taiwan's Golden Stone Awards.
The main campus contains a number of landscaped areas interspersed among its academic buildings. These include Drunken Moon Lake, the Liugongjun Pool, Fu Garden, the agricultural experimental farm, and the lawns and tree-lined avenues surrounding Royal Palm Boulevard. The campus's main gate, built in 1931 together with its guardhouse, survives as part of the original imperial-university complex. Royal Palm Boulevard remains the principal pedestrian axis through the center of campus, extending toward the Main Library at its eastern end.
The main campus is adjacent to Gongguan metro station on the Songshan–Xindian line of the Taipei Metro; Exit 3 is approximately a three-minute walk from the main entrance, while Exit 2 provides direct access to the entrance at Roosevelt Road and Zhoushan Road. The northeastern portion of the campus can also be reached from Technology Building metro station on the Wenhu line by walking south along Fuxing South Road to the Xinhai Road entrance. City bus routes serve stops along Roosevelt Road, Xinsheng South Road, and the surrounding streets.
Walking and cycling are common forms of transportation within the main campus, and bicycle-sharing stations are located around the university and its neighboring metro stations. NTU also operates shuttle services linking the main campus with the College of Medicine and other university facilities, as well as a service connecting the university with Academia Sinica.
