Grand opening in Taiwan’s capital! Arts center rethinks as theater design of $220 million!

Updated on August 18, 2022 14:40 PM by Laura Mendes

Rethinking the way of theaters!

Last week in Taiwan, the long-awaited Taipei Performing Arts Center opened to the public. The construction was delayed, and debates over a budget have climbed to 6.7 billion New Taiwan dollars and a venue that radically rethinks the way theaters operate.

Exciting designs!

The Grand Theater is by far the largest, with 1500 seats. It is a comparatively small 800-seat Globe playhouse with a spherical auditorium clad in corrugated glass with the most distinctive features. The theater is designed with three performance stages that protrude from its cubic center. Dutch firm was behind the project compared to the planet docking against the cube.

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OMA's founder and architect Rem Koolhaas said that in the early part of the 21^st century, there was an apparent obligation to make buildings stranger and stranger. The outside shapes of each of the components were obliged to combine with the only spectacle. Architect David Gianotten added they are two well-known shapes: a cube and a ball, as he sketched the design with Koolhaas in 2008.

Internal workings of theaters!

The architects envisaged three separate theaters that plugged into a central hub. There was a served backstage area configured to serve them all. The Grand Theater and a second 800-seater, the Blue Box, combined into a single performance space dubbed a Super Theater. The venue's internal workings of the architects saved space in a north Taipei neighborhood known for the busy night market. Another benefit is encouraging interactions between producers, staff, actors, and audiences who might not cross paths.

It was really interesting with all types of energies with visitors coming in anticipation, people who are creating, people who are performing are all together, and there is no connection between different performance spaces. The auditoriums open with new creative possibilities for performers and directors, said the center's CEO, Austin Wang.

Public gesture!

Koolhaas has overseen dozens of cultural buildings, where Taiwan is one of his most eye-catching. The 77-year-old insists that the project is a distinguishing feature with neither the unconventional layout nor the giant sphere colliding with its façade. A walkway nicknamed the 'Public Loop' that offers glimpses of performances and backstage areas through portal windows, not just those with show tickets on a building tour.

Koolhaas expressed his incredible relief and happiness at seeing the building completed that was 14 years after his firm began designing it. Wang said the project was delayed before coming to a halt in 2016 as it took more than 18 months to solve all the political issues.

Cultural hub!

In the first year, the institution must only generate 8% of its annual budget through ticket sales, donations, and other revenue. The contribution is expected to rise above half in the next two decades. The city of Kaohsiung, 185 miles south of Taipei, welcomed one of the world’s largest performance arts centers, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, which is a 1.5 million square foot complex with five major performances in 2018. The recently constructed Taipei Music Center offers a 5000-capacity concert hall to the theater's southeast, about five miles.

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The success of international events like the Taipei Dangdai contemporary art fair has further bolstered Taiwan's status as an emerging cultural hub. The public investment in arts results in longstanding geopolitical tensions with China, which consider Taiwan part of its sovereign territory.