{"id":343355,"date":"2025-12-12T15:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343355\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:01:07","slug":"getting-lost-is-good-skybridge-and-floating-stairs-bring-fun-and-thrills-to-mighty-new-taiwan-museum-art-and-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343355\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Getting lost is good\u2019: skybridge and floating stairs bring fun and thrills to mighty new Taiwan museum | Art and design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walking through the brand new Taichung Art Museum in central Taiwan<\/a>, directions are kind of an abstract concept. Designed by powerhouse Japanese architecture firm Sanaa, the complex is a collection of eight askew buildings, melding an art museum and municipal library, encased in silver mesh-like walls, with soaring ceilings and meandering pathways.<\/p>\n

Past the lobby \u2013 a breezy open space that is neither inside nor out \u2013 the visitor wanders around paths and ramps, finding themselves in the library one minute and a world-class art exhibition the next. A door might suddenly step through to a skybridge over a rooftop garden, with sweeping views across Taichung\u2019s Central Park, or into a cosy teenage reading room. Staircases float on the outside of buildings, floor levels are disparate, complementing a particular space\u2019s purpose and vibe rather than having an overall consistency.<\/p>\n

It is \u201ceasy to get lost in\u201d, says Lan Yu-hua, an associate researcher at the museum, laughing. But she says that\u2019s something to embrace: \u201cWe say that getting lost is good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taichung Art Museum is a municipal government-led project, and the latest in a string of high profile, ambitiously designed<\/a> museums and performance spaces<\/a> which have opened in Taiwan in the last two decades.<\/p>\n

Eclectic mix \u2026 an installation view of Folds and Flows in the A Call of All Beings exhibition. Photograph: Anpis Wang\/Bolton & Quinn<\/p>\n

Led by 2010 Pritzker prize laureates Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, Sanaa also designed<\/a> the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, and the Sydney Modern gallery<\/a>. They worked with Taiwanese firm Ricky Liu & Associates Architects+Planners on the six-year build commissioned by the Taichung city government, who had simply asked for an art museum and a library on the same site.<\/p>\n

The final product has dissolved the borders between the two, and there\u2019s a sense that the complex is designed to slow you down. It\u2019s easy to picture a day spent in the library reading or working, taking breaks with a walk through the halls of art.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so glad that we are with the library all together, because I think that can really open up another layer of audiences for us,\u201d says Yi-Hsin Lai, the museum\u2019s director.<\/p>\n

Their inaugural showing includes commissions by South Korean artist Haegue Yang<\/a> and Taiwanese artist Michael Lin. Yang\u2019s work is an abstract take on the banyan trees and fireflies ubiquitous to Taiwan and Korea. Dangling in the 27 metre-high central atrium, it blends her signature venetian blinds with lights and steel frames. At night, the light from her work glowing through the mesh can be seen a kilometre away.<\/p>\n

The larger opening exhibition, A Call of All Beings, is an eclectic but coherent mix of commissioned works and newly acquired pieces by artists from 20 countries. Curated by an international team from Taiwan, Romania, Korea and the US, it hangs Taiwanese master painters of the mid 20th century next to postmodern video works. In something of a coup, the curators also sourced original early sketches of Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry\u2019s book, The Little Prince, and archive photos of Helen Keller.<\/p>\n

\u2018Gamechanger\u2019 \u2026 exterior view of Taichung Art Museum. Photograph: Iwan Baan\/Image courtesy of Cultural Affairs Bureau, Taichung City Government. \u00a9 Iwan Baan<\/p>\n

It places an emphasis on Taiwanese artists, especially those from Taichung. And there is a particular focus on including artists with disabilities \u2013 a timely effort in the same week that Nnena Kalu became the first artist with a learning disability to take home the \u00a325,000 Turner prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The museum officially opens to the public on 13 December. They are expecting international press and visiting museum directors, but otherwise a mostly local crowd. At least for now.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s international profile is often tied to geopolitics and threats of invasion, rather than its arts. But that\u2019s slowly changing and events such as Art Taipei and Taipei Biennial are drawing bigger crowds every year. For at least half a decade, the scene has been described as \u201cundergoing a vibrant transformation<\/a>\u201d and \u201cgaining momentum on the global stage<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think it can open up another layer of audiences for us\u2019 \u2026 the reading area of Taichung Public Library. Photograph: Iwan Baan\/Cultural Affairs Bureau, Taichung City Government<\/p>\n

For Taiwan\u2019s art sector, this new museum is a chance to raise Taiwan\u2019s presence in the global art scene<\/a> and further \u201cdecentralise\u201d it from the capital Taipei. Taichung, the second biggest city, is a short and easy trip from Taipei on the high-speed rail, and already hosts a well-regarded Museum of Fine Arts and a burgeoning sector of private galleries<\/a>. But it struggles to attract international art fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite dynamic and vibrant now. We hope that in a few years Taichung can be an artistic landmark Asian city,\u201d says Lai.<\/p>\n

Claudia Chen, chair of the Taiwan Art<\/a> Gallery Association, says the new museum is a potential \u201cgamechanger\u201d for Taiwan, \u201cshifting the focus from the north to south\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Taichung and southern Taiwan have had many arts and cultural events in the past, none have reached the scale and importance of Taipei,\u201d says Chen.<\/p>\n

Jenny Yeh, executive director of the Winsing Arts Foundation, says Sanaa\u2019s involvement with the project has drawn international attention and built on Taiwan\u2019s artistic momentum. \u201cThis will encourage more international visitors to explore beyond Taipei and gain a fuller sense of Taiwan\u2019s cultural landscape. Overall, it will be a major boost to Taiwan\u2019s visibility on the global stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walking through the brand new Taichung Art Museum in central Taiwan, directions are kind of an abstract concept.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-343355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}