Cultural infrastructure to gain from Cabinet plan

The Council for Cultural Affairs yesterday announced a plan to build world-class art and pop music centers in an effort to make the country a leading cultural center within five years.

The initiative is one of the major components of a Cabinet construction package budgeted at NT$500 billion and aims to remedy the disproportionate cultural development that exists between urban and rural areas, said council chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀) yesterday at a news conference.

"At present the major facilities for performances and exhibitions are in Taipei, but people living in other areas have the same need to enjoy cultural events," Tchen said.

"It is the government's responsibility to respond to their needs by establishing more international, professional and properly functioning cultural centers," she said.

Tchen that although the country's competitiveness was highly ranked at fifth by the World Economic Forum, public infrastructure was ranked 21st in the same study.

This meant there was still a lot of room for improvement in this area, she said.

"Compared with most of the projects that focus on construction in transportation and industry, this [project] centers more on cultural development," said Tchen.

"The central government will spare no effort in helping local governments with finance and advice," she said.

"But it will not take profits from them," she added.

There would be four major cultural infrastructure projects, said Tchen.

These would be the Taipei Metropolitan Theater in Panchiao, the Guggenheim Museum in Taichung, the Weiwu Camp Art Center in Kaohsiung and three other centers for popular music performances.

The total budget for the facilities has been set at NT$22.5 billion, Tchen said.

She added that the three pop music facilities will be built at locations voted on by teenagers.

They will not only feature concerts but will also have a music database available as well as a copyright center to protect against piracy.

Tchen that the shortage of professional performance sites has meant that the country has lagged far behind other Asian countries in hosting big-name international performers and events.

"Some people doubt whether Taiwan needs so many theaters or music centers," said Tchen.

"I would say that even though we don't need them at this moment, future generations will be badly in need of them if we don't start the process of constructing them now," she said.

For example, she added, Hong Kong has built four professional cultural centers since 1999 and Singapore has built six.

Taiwan, however, had still not built one, despite the wealth of cultural material it could use.

"If we had not built the National Concert Hall and the National Theater 16 years ago, the cultural and artistic atmosphere in Taiwan would have been very different now," said Tchen.

"It is urgent that we commence construction as soon as possible," she said.

"That way we can win a place for Taiwan on the global stage as the world watches Asia when the Olympics is held in Beijing in 2008," she added.