SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 1 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane Liou

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https://www.archdaily.com/1034405/sanaa-unveils-images-of-the-design-for-taichung-art-museum-and-library-complex-in-taiwan

The Taichung Art Museum officially opened on December 13, 2025, with an inaugural exhibition titled A Call of All Beings: See You Tomorrow, Same Time, Same Place. The building, designed by SANAA, is part of the Taichung Green Museumbrary project, developed in collaboration with local firm Ricky Liu & Associates. Conceived as a major cultural initiative, the project combines a contemporary art museum, library resources, and public parkland. Through interactive education and outreach programmes, it aims to establish a new institutional model for Taichung, one that supports artistic exchange while positioning the city as an international cultural hub. On view through April 12, 2026, the opening exhibition explores the relationships between people and nature, the city and memory, interspecies connections, and the future, beginning with an examination of the complex’s own context in central Taiwan.

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SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 2 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane Liou

At the core of the Taichung Green Museumbrary concept is the integration of the Taichung Art Museum and the Taichung Public Library within a single facility. Located in the Shuinan Trade and Economic Park, on the northern edge of the 67-hectare Central Park, the complex is built on the grounds of a former military airfield decommissioned in 2004. The project seeks to blur the boundaries between museums and libraries, fostering an inclusive, open space where reading, exhibiting, and cultural activities coexist. Its spaces are designed to encourage interaction across disciplines and to expand contemporary perspectives through public and educational programs.

SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 4 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane LiouSANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 9 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane Liou

The design includes approximately 40,000 square feet of indoor galleries and a range of outdoor exhibition areas, including sky bridges and a roof-level cultural forest. These spaces allow the museum to display both its permanent collection of postwar and contemporary Taiwanese art and temporary international exhibitions. As shown in the project photography by YHLAA, a central atrium, built with a lightweight mesh structure, brings natural light into the interior and connects the different levels of galleries through an upward spiral ramp, emphasizing accessibility and visual continuity across the building. The eight-building complex relies on semi-transparent materials such as glass and expanded metal mesh to achieve its open character. Galleries are linked by ramps, creating a continuous sequence of experiences, while some buildings are elevated to form shaded public areas on the ground level.

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The opening exhibition, A Call of All Beings: See You Tomorrow, Same Time, Same Place, resonates with SANAA‘s approach, emphasizing transparency and flow between interior and exterior spaces, as well as between art and landscape. Jointly curated by the Museum’s curatorial team alongside Taiwanese curator Chow Ling-Chih, American curator Alaina Claire Feldman, and Romanian curator Anca Mihuleţ-Kim, it takes the landscape of Taichung Central Park as its point of departure. The exhibition reflects on the urban and ecological setting of the Taichung Green Museumbrary and focuses on the coexistence of people and all beings. It presents more than 90 works by 70 artist groups from over 20 countries, including newly commissioned pieces, works from the TcAM collection, and international loans. The exhibition spans a wide range of media, including video, installations, sculpture, painting, archival materials, and artist books, bringing together cross-generational artistic perspectives on land, nature, and space.

SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 3 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane LiouSANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 11 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane Liou

The curatorial team has organized the exhibition around five subthemes: How to Draw a Coastline?, Recalling Fables, Folds and Flows, The Troubling of Natural Histories, and When the World Begins to Speak. Drawing on cross-cultural, cross-species, and cross-generational perspectives, these sections address how cities govern nature and negotiate coexistence with the environment. Artists working across diverse media respond to ongoing environmental and historical transformations, unfolding multiple imaginaries through the reciprocal flows between the city and all beings, ranging from sensory experiences of nature to traces of memory, healing, and restoration. Through the subtitle See You Tomorrow, Same Time, Same Place, the exhibition conveys a promise of mutual care activated through the arts. A Call of All Beings extends into the public spaces of the Taichung Green Museumbrary, where several large-scale, site-specific works engage directly with the building’s architecture.

SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum and Library Complex Opens as a New Public Cultural Landmark in Taiwan - Image 5 of 14Taichung Art Museum / SANAA. Image © YHLAA. Photography by Yi-Hsien Lee and photo retouch by Kane Liou

Covering a total area of 58,016 square metres, the Taichung Green Museumbrary represents SANAA’s first public building in Taiwan and its largest cultural project to date. Under the leadership of director Yi-Hsin Lai, the museum will host international exhibitions and exchange programmes while supporting local artistic practices. Other recent museum announcements include Kéré Architecture’s project for the Las Vegas Museum of Art, designed in collaboration with SOM and set to become the city’s first stand-alone museum, scheduled to open in 2029. In Shenzhen, China, a new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (MOCAUP) presents a comprehensive overview of the evolution of Zaha Hadid Architects’ work over recent decades. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the National Building Museum is presenting Coming Together: Reimagining America’s Downtowns, an exhibition exploring post-pandemic transformations of community and public spaces across the United States.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on September 24, 2025, and updated on January 2, 2026, to include information about the opening exhibition.