canopy so big that Alexander the Great
and his army of 7,000 are said to have taken
shelter under one in India. In Taiwan,
banyans often play host to events and
improvised gatherings, and are a cherished
presence in parks, including Weiwuying.
Following the form of a banyan, Houben
designed a ‘Banyan Plaza’ as the entry point
to the new building, in place of a centralised
reception hall. Occupying the entire footprint
of the building, the covered plaza flows with
the surrounding landscape, gently rising
and ebbing to give a sense of rhythm and
conceal the technical spaces underfoot. It
blurs the boundary between outdoors and in,
connecting the park with the auditoriums
inside. The flooring has a polyurethane resinfinish, resilient and suited to a variety of uses –
impromptu performances, tai chi sessions,
picnics, perhaps a children’s game of hide and
seek – while the underside of the canopy is
clad in 1,520 tonnes of steel plates, 6mm-thick
and individually curved.
Mecanoo had first presented its idea
for the Banyan Plaza at Milan Design Week
in 2008, in the form of a pavilion titled
‘A Piece of Banyan’ and covered in ceramic
tiles. When it came to Weiwuying’s canopy,
‘I remembered that the most famous
collection of Chinese porcelain is in Taiwan,
and it has a craquelé pattern’, says Houben.
‘So we worked with this Italian factory to
develop tiles with craquelé patterns, which
we’d use on the surfaces. But the humiditymeant there was a risk of tiles falling from the
ceiling, and the curves were difficult to make.’
Mecanoo subsequently experimented with
aluminium and stucco, only to realise that a
solution lay within Kaohsiung’s shipyards.
The project was seized upon by local builders,
who sensed the opportunity to reverse
their declining fortunes. ‘The architecture
industry is used to standardisation, but
the shipbuilding industry is familiar with
creating individual curves,’ says Friso van der
Steen, Mecanoo’s director of international
projects. ‘So we pre-fabricated steel plates in
the shipyards, deformed them with a giant
press, and assembled them into modules.
These were then hung from the main
structure using steel rods and heavy springs.’
The welds were kept visible so the building
would resemble a cargo ship (‘not a luxury
yacht’, quips van der Steen), and there are
markings to indicate height above sea level at
various points in the plaza. By day, the space
is flooded with natural light; at night, which
is when Kaohsiung truly comes alive, it is
illuminated by a wide array of lighting, so the
space can be dressed to suit its programme.
Included are flying saucer-like pendant lights,
3.5m in diameter, to give the feeling of a
gigantic living room.
From the Banyan Plaza, there are
entrances to four foyers, where the colour
palette is limited to black and white stucco
walls and grey tiled flooring. The better
to focus attention on the fluid lines, which
rise along the levels to create a sense
of anticipation as one approaches the
auditoriums – an opera house, a play house,
concert hall and a recital hall, each with
its own distinctive identity.
With 2,260 seats, and positioned at
the centre of the building, the opera house
is the biggest of the four spaces, with an
appropriately grand colour scheme of red
and black. A horseshoe layout ensures that
no seat is more than 38m from the stage,
while acoustics are optimised for clarity,
keeping in mind that most performances will
not be in the audience’s native language. This
is the first dedicated national opera house to
be built in Taiwan. A more intimate ambiance
is offered at the playhouse (1,243 seats, for
experimental theatre and Chinese opera)
and recital hall (470 seats). »This page and opposite, sweeping volumes, flowing curves and contrasting
black and white surfaces bring a calligraphic effect to the foyers394 ∑