Chiang Kai-shek died on April 5, 1975. Within weeks, the Executive Yuan established a funeral committee to build a memorial worthy of the man who had led the Republic of China for decades. Architect Yang Cho-cheng won the design competition with a plan that drew heavily on traditional Chinese architectural forms, consciously echoing the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing. Groundbreaking took place on October 31, 1976, the 90th anniversary of Chiang's birth. The hall opened exactly on the fifth anniversary of his death, April 5, 1980. Yang's design covered more than 240,000 square meters of Zhongzheng District, anchored by the white memorial hall at the eastern end, with the National Theater to the north and the National Concert Hall to the south. A main gate on Chung Shan South Road bore the inscription "Great Centrality and Perfect Uprightness" -- a philosophical claim that would soon be tested by history.

The square became Taipei's gathering place almost immediately. But the gatherings that defined it were not the reverential ceremonies its designers envisioned. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, the plaza hosted a succession of pro-democracy demonstrations that grew bolder as martial law weakened. The pivotal moment came in March 1990, when the Wild Lily student movement occupied the square, demanding direct elections, dissolution of the National Assembly, and a timetable for democratic reform. The movement catalyzed President Lee Teng-hui's far-reaching political reforms, which culminated in Taiwan's first popular presidential election in 1996. A monument built to honor authoritarian power had become the staging ground for its undoing.

In 2007, President Chen Shui-bian rededicated the plaza as Liberty Square, and the memorial hall itself was briefly renamed in honor of democracy. Kuomintang officials reacted with hostility. When Ma Ying-jeou became president, the original dedication to Chiang was restored to the hall, though the name Liberty Square was eventually accepted across party lines. The tension remains visible and deliberate. The Chinese calligraphy over the main gate now reads "Liberty Square" in a style recalling Wang Xizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty -- chosen for its sense of vitality and freedom. The characters run left to right, following modern Taiwanese practice, replacing the ancient right-to-left order that had been observed at the site. Even the direction of reading carries political meaning here.

Inside the upper level, a massive bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek sits in a hall where, until 2024, military honor guards performed a ceremonial changing of the guard at regular intervals. That year, the Ministry of Culture announced the removal of the guards as part of broader efforts to end the promotion of a "cult of personality" around Chiang. The ground level houses a museum documenting Chiang's life and career alongside broader exhibits on Taiwan's history. In 2017, on the 70th anniversary of the February 28 Incident and the 30th anniversary of the lifting of martial law, the Ministry of Culture announced plans to transform the hall into a center for "facing history, recognizing agony, and respecting human rights." The transformation remains ongoing. The hall exists in a state of institutional uncertainty that mirrors Taiwan's own relationship with its authoritarian past -- neither fully preserved as a shrine nor fully converted into a reckoning.