The long-awaited Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan has been completed.
Created by a team led by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten at OMA with local architect, Kris Yao, the 59,000sq m cultural centre has been designed as a highly flexible space suitable for the most experimental performances, and features “three theatres plugged into a central cube,” according to Gianotten. The theatres can be merged or modified, making them suitable for a whole host of different “unimagined and spontaneous forms.”
The general public can access a Public Loop, which runs through the theatre’s infrastructure production spaces – portal windows allow them to peek at performances and the technical spaces in between the theatres.
The spherical 800-seat Globe Playhouse, with an inner and an outer shell, “resembles a planet docking against the cube,” according to the architects. The intersection between the inner shell and the cube forms a unique proscenium for experimentation with stage framing.
The Grand Theater is a 1,500-seat theatre space for different performing arts genres. Opposite to it, on the same level, is the 840-seat Blue Box for the most experimental performances. When coupled, the two theatres become a Super Theater – a huge, factory-style space that can accommodate productions and events “otherwise only possible in found spaces”.
A new landscaped plaza beneath the theatre offers a further gathering space.
The centre is due to open to the public in August 2022 following a series of test performances.
