A plug-in city for culture
Taipei Performing Arts Centre by OMA and Kris Yao | Artech
© Chris Stowers
Taipei’s new centre for performing arts combines three very different auditoria, some of which can be combined with each other, into a flexible whole. With this design, OMA and their Taiwanese partner studio Kris Yao | Artech have created an antithesis to the other theatre buildings that are being built all over the country.
© Shephotoerd Co. Photography
About these other theatre buildings they have written: “Contemporary performance theatres increasingly become standardized: a combination of two different-sized auditoria and a black box [...] Can a public theatre still be inclusive, accommodating the classic and the serendipitous, the highbrow and the masses, the artistic and the social—a place for the creative life of all?”
The answer is provided by this new building on the eastern edge of central Taipei, which cost around 180 million euros. It is a translucent cube onto which the metal-clad volumes of the three auditoria are docked. As far back as 2009, OMA won the competition to design the theatre centre; construction lasted from 2012 until 2021.
© Chris Stowers
Along with the Grand Theatre, which has 1500 seats, the building encompasses an 800-spectator Blue (not black) Box and the unique Globe Playhouse, whose double-skinned orb facade represents, to a certain extent, the formal unique feature of the new structure. The Grand Theatre and Blue Box lie opposite each other and can be connected to form an enormous, continuous auditorium with a central stage and rising rows of seats to each side.
© Shephotoerd Co. Photography
© Shephotoerd Co. Photography
The long hall thusly created will likely present a challenge to the scenography gifts of future generations of directors. The central cube contains the stage equipment for the auditoria, all ancillary spaces and the access areas.
In future, even visitors without tickets will be able to have a look at performances. A Public Loop runs through all the levels of the new building, extending from the entrance to the panoramic terrace on the roof. Along this path, large windows not only allow views into the three auditoria, but also into the technical rooms and backstage.
© Chris Stowers
Details of the new structure reveal many set pieces from older OMA buildings, such as the undulating glass shell of the Casa da Musica in Porto, the gleaming orange-red escalators of the Ruhr Museum in Essen and the industrial material palette of metal gridwork and perforated sheeting that graces so many of the studio’s projects. Statically, the new building represented a challenge primarily in that Taipei is located in an earthquake zone. Thanks to foundation pads, the building is completely disconnected from the underground. According to the engineers from Arup, this has reduced the material requirements for the supporting structure by 60 %.
Virtual Tour: Taipei Performing Arts Centre
For more of OMA's projects and full construction details of the buildings, see the OMA monograph at Edition Detail.
Architecture: OMA, Kris Yao | Artech
Client: Taipei City Government
Location: No. 1號, Jiantan Rd, Shilin District, Taipei City, Taiwan 111 (TW)
Landscape architecture: CNHW
Buildings services engineering: Arup, Heng Kai, IS Leng and Associates Engineers
Fire prevention: Taiwan Fire Safety Consulting
Lighting design: Chroma 33
Theatre planning: Ducks Scéno
Acoustics: Royal Haskoning DHV
Construction costs: approx. 180 Mio. €
Gross floor area: 58 600 m²
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