The final 20 percent of funding needed to build a proposed US$400 million Guggenheim Museum in Taichung may be approved this week, said Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation in New York.
"We're expecting approval of the final 20 percent from the city council by the end of this week," Krens said during a symposium of the Business Committee for the Arts, a New York-based nonprofit organization.
"This project actually could be under construction as early as the end of 2004,'' he said.
The museum in Taichung would expand the Guggenheim's international scope. In addition to Bilbao, the Guggenheim Foundation has created satellite museums in Las Vegas, Nevada, Venice, Italy and Berlin, Germany.
The museum, designed by Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi-born architect based in London, would be 119,600m2.
That is the same siz as the Guggenheim Bilbao, a stainless-steel structure by architect Frank Gehry that is a tourist attraction in the Basque region of Spain.
"It's like nothing I've ever seen," Krens said of Hadid's design. "It's a brand new vocabulary for museum architecture."
Premier Yu Shyi-kun said last month that his government would fund 80 percent of the project to as much as NT$5 billion.
Plans for the Taiwanese museum are in the preliminary stages, Anthony Calnek, a Guggenheim spokesman, said.
"We're in the middle of the feasibility study period still," he said. "And the next step is a negotiation between the two parties."
The Guggenheim Foundation also has plans to build a branch in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In April, Mayor Cesar Maia agreed to pay the foundation US$32.7 million to develop a US$250 million museum on Rio's waterfront designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.
However, in June, a Brazilian court blocked construction of the museum after opponents filed a lawsuit.
The first two F-16V Bock 70 jets purchased from the US are expected to arrive in Taiwan around Double Ten National Day, which is on Oct. 10, a military source said yesterday. Of the 66 F-16V Block 70 jets purchased from the US, the first completed production in March, the source said, adding that since then three jets have been produced per month. Although there were reports of engine defects, the issue has been resolved, they said. After the jets arrive in Taiwan, they must first pass testing by the air force before they would officially become Taiwan’s property, they said. The air force
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
RSS