‘The Joy of Disorientation’: Skybridge and Floating Stairs Bring Fun and Thrills to Mighty New Taiwan Museum.
Navigating the brand new Taichung Art Museum in central Taiwan feels like wandering through a conceptual maze. The brainchild of the renowned Japanese architecture firm Sanaa, the structure unites eight deliberately askew buildings that seamlessly merge an art museum with a public library. Wrapped in shimmering, mesh-like silver walls, the interior boasts soaring ceilings and winding routes.
Beyond the breezy lobby—a space that exists between inside and out—visitors drift along walkways and inclines, suddenly transitioning in a library one moment and a world-class art exhibition the next. A doorway might open up to a elevated walkway offering vistas from a rooftop garden, revealing sweeping panoramas of Taichung’s Central Park, or into a cozy teenage reading nook. Steps seem to hang on building exteriors, and floor levels are deliberately disparate, complementing each space’s unique function and atmosphere rather than following a rigid, standardized design.
“It is ‘simple to lose your way within’,” observes Lan Yu-hua, an associate researcher at the museum, with a laugh. But she maintains that’s something to embrace: “We say that getting lost is good.”
This city-funded initiative stands as the newest in a series of high-profile museums and performance venues established across Taiwan over the past two decades.
Pritzker Laureates at Work
Led by 2010 Pritzker Prize laureates Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa—the duo behind the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and the Sydney Modern gallery—Sanaa collaborated with the Taiwanese firm Ricky Liu & Associates Architects+Planners on the lengthy development. The Taichung city government’s initial brief was for an art museum and a library on a single site.
The final result has blurred the distinctions between the two institutions. The design encourages visitors to slow down, easily picturing a day spent reading or working in the library, broken up with leisurely walks through exhibition rooms.
“We are extremely pleased that we are with the library all together, because I think that can really open up another layer of audiences for us,” states Yi-Hsin Lai, the museum’s director.
Launch Shows with International Flair
The museum’s opening program feature commissioned works by esteemed South Korean artist Haegue Yang and Taiwanese artist Michael Lin. Yang’s immersive work offers an abstract interpretation on the banyan trees and fireflies found throughout Taiwan and Korea. Suspended within the 27-meter-high central atrium, it incorporates her signature venetian blinds with lights and steel frames. At night, the luminous emission from her work is visible through the exterior mesh from a kilometer away.
The larger opening exhibition, titled A Call of All Beings, is an varied but harmonious mix of new installations and recent acquisitions by artists from 20 countries. Put together by an international team, it places side-by-side master painters from mid-20th century Taiwan alongside postmodern video works. In a impressive feat, the curators also obtained original early sketches from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and archival photographs of Helen Keller.
The exhibition places a strong emphasis on Taiwanese artists, with a focus on those from Taichung. There is also a dedicated focus on including artists with disabilities—a timely initiative.
Elevating Taiwan’s Cultural Profile
For Taiwan’s art sector, this new museum represents a major chance to raise Taiwan’s presence in the global art scene and further “decentralize” cultural focus from the capital, Taipei. Taichung, the island’s second-largest city, is a short, easy trip from Taipei and boasts a respected Museum of Fine Arts and a burgeoning sector of private galleries. However, it has found it challenging to attract international art tourists.
“It’s quite dynamic and vibrant now. We hope that in a few years Taichung can be an artistic landmark Asian city,” expresses Director Lai.
Claudia Chen, chair of a major Taiwanese art association, describes the new museum as a potential “gamechanger” for the country, “shifting the focus from the north to south.”
“While Taichung and southern Taiwan have had many arts and cultural events in the past, none have reached the scale and importance of Taipei,” Chen notes.
Another arts foundation executive, Jenny Yeh, points out that Sanaa’s involvement has garnered global interest and amplified Taiwan’s existing artistic momentum. “This will encourage more international visitors to explore beyond Taipei and develop a more complete understanding of Taiwan’s cultural landscape. Overall, it will be a major boost to Taiwan’s visibility on the global stage.”
The museum welcomes the general public in mid-December, preparing for a mostly regional audience, at least initially, alongside visiting international press and museum professionals.
