Qualla: Remains of the 13 Levels https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:38 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/q/w/remains-of-the-13-levels-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Remains of the 13 Levels https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels Remains of the 13 Levels: Introduction https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels/ Photo credit M Louis [2], CC BY-SA 2.0. Drive the coastal highway east of Keelung and the ruin appears before the road explains it - a massive stepped structure climbing the hillside above the Pacific, its concrete tiers half-swallowed by vegetation, looking less like a factory and more like a fortress that lost a long war against the jungle. Locals call it the Potala Palace of Mountain Mines, a name that captures both the scale and the improbability: a thirteen-tiered industrial complex built into a slope so steep that each level sits on the roof of the one below. The Remains of the 13 Levels is the Shuinandong Smelter, built in 1933 during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. For forty years it processed copper and gold ore hauled from the mines at Jinguashi and Jiufen, refining raw rock into metal through a process that descended through the building's terraces like ore through a funnel. The smelter closed in 1973 when the minerals ran out. The building has been slowly disintegrating ever since, but slowly is the operative word. Concrete endures.

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Image: M Louis [2] | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/q/w/remains-of-the-13-levels-wp/wsqw-remains-of-the-13-levels-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Remains of the 13 Levels: Thirteen Tiers of Fire and Metal https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels/ Photo credit Kochunhuang, CC BY-SA 4.0. The smelter's design followed the logic of gravity. Ore entered at the top and progressed downhill through successive stages of crushing, roasting, smelting, and refining, each step occupying its own level of the terraced structure. The building was not thirteen discrete stories ...

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Image: Kochunhuang | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/q/w/remains-of-the-13-levels-wp/wsqw-remains-of-the-13-levels-thirteen-tiers-of-fire-and-metal.mp3 0:06 2 full Remains of the 13 Levels: The Prisoners Below https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels/ Photo credit Taiwankengo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Between 1942 and 1945, the Japanese military sent approximately one thousand prisoners of war to the gold mines surrounding the smelting plant. These were Allied soldiers - British, Canadian, Dutch, Australian, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Americans - captured during Japan...

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Image: Taiwankengo | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/q/w/remains-of-the-13-levels-wp/wsqw-remains-of-the-13-levels-the-prisoners-below.mp3 0:06 3 full Remains of the 13 Levels: Rust and Recognition https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels/ Photo credit Alexander Synaptic from Changhua, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0. After the Republic of China assumed administration of Taiwan in 1945, the smelter was taken over by a state-run mining corporation. Operations continued for nearly three more decades, but by the early 1970s the ore deposits that had sustained the district since the late nineteent...

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Image: Alexander Synaptic from Changhua, Taiwan | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/q/w/remains-of-the-13-levels-wp/wsqw-remains-of-the-13-levels-rust-and-recognition.mp3 0:06 4 full Remains of the 13 Levels: Light on the Bones https://qualla.com/remains-of-the-13-levels/ Photo credit Philoschen, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 2019, the ruins were illuminated for the Moon Festival in an art installation that gave the decaying structure a second life, at least for a night. Two artists - Chou Lien and Joyce Ho - collaborated with Taiwan Power Company, the current site owner, to project light across th...

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Image: Philoschen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/q/w/remains-of-the-13-levels-wp/wsqw-remains-of-the-13-levels-light-on-the-bones.mp3 0:06 5 full