Construction of the Taipei Performing Arts Center, designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and intended as a new cultural landmark, began yesterday on the former site of the Shilin Night Market.
City officials hope the arts center will boost the city’s cultural significance upon its scheduled opening in 2015.
The project, initiated in 2003 during President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) term as Taipei mayor, will be one of the biggest arts centers in Taipei once it is completed, and will house one cube-shaped theater with 1,500 seats and two circular 800-seat theaters.
However, the choice of site has been criticized, as some have challenged the decision to place a performing arts center next to a night market.
Ma discussed the problem of finding a suitable location while attending the center’s groundbreaking ceremony yesterday. He said the site, which is next to the MRT’s Jiantan Station, offers a convenient location with easy access to public transport.
Once it is completed, the arts center will serve as a major venue for arts and cultural performances in northern Taipei, while the National Theater and Concert Hall will remain the major performance venue for the southern area.
Together with the “Grand National Palace Museum Project,” which will enlarge the museum’s exhibition space fivefold, the president said, the arts center will help make the city’s northern district a “cultural zone.”
“The Performing Arts Center will become a new landmark, not only in Taipei, but also in Asia and even in the world. It will help boost cultural development in Taiwan and make us the pioneer in the development of Chinese culture [sic],” he said.
Koolhaas, discussing the design of the building, shared Ma’s confidence in blending the arts center into its environs, saying that the vitality of the adjacent Shilin Night Market was the main inspiration for the design.
The exterior of the building was described as looking like “tofu with preserved egg” when Koolhaas’ team unveiled the design in 2009.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday defended the design of the building, and said the “public loop,” which exposes the backstage to the public and allows people to view the different theaters and watch rehearsals, will offer the audience a more complete experience of theater production.
According to Taipei City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the center will be completed in November 2014 and begin operation in 2015.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai