he first thing you register is
the scale. The National Kaohsiung Center for
the Arts measures 225m long and 160m wide,
dwarfing the surrounding clutter of cuboid
buildings in a mishmash of architectural
styles. This low building has a gleaming
white roof that undulates like rolling hills,
its crests marking the spots where indoor
performance spaces are located. It’s the world’s
largest performing arts centre under one roof,
the pride of a rapidly modernising Taiwan,
and a beacon to draw international cultural
talents and admirers alike.
Known locally as Weiwuying, after the
surrounding metropolitan park that until
1979 accommodated a military base, the
building is the work of Mecanoo, the Dutch
architecture practice whose repertoire
includes the Library of Birmingham, the train
station of Delft, and the ongoing renovation
of New York Public Library. The enlisting of
internationally credentialled architects by
ambitious but distant cities has often resulted
in spectacular buildings devoid of context.
But not here. Weiwuying, as Mecanoo
founding partner and creative director
Francine Houben declares, is ‘made just for
Kaohsiung’, well adapted to local climate,
topography and culture, and taking design
cues from the city’s maritime past.
Houben first visited Kaohsiung in 2006,
when she entered a competition organised
by Taiwan’s national government to design
the final piece in a trifecta of performing
arts centres (Taipei National Theater and
Concert Hall had opened in 1987, and Toyo
Ito’s National Taichung Theater was still
under construction). She quickly found an
affinity for the city. ‘The Netherlands and
Taiwan are coastal nations of similar size,’ she
says. ‘The Dutch first came to Taiwan in the
17th century, so we feel at home here.’ Most
sharply, she recalls coming across barracks,
barking dogs and banyan trees. The latter,
a tropical species with billowing aerial roots
that eventually anchor into the ground and
become additional trunks, would become the
inspiration for Weiwuying. The crowns of thebanyan are thick and horizontal, forming a (^) »
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