MUSIC CENTER FOR $ 100 MILLION IN TAIPEI IN PLACE OF A FORMER INDUSTRIAL SITE

Flexibility and transformation - these are the two basic ideas that describe the design of Reiser + Umemoto, who won the international competition for a design of a center for pop music in Taipei. The project will absorb $ 100 million and it will be implemented by Reiser + Umemoto, RUR Architecture in collaboration with local architects of Fei & Cheng Associates and ARUP. The center will be a kind of new world music center, which will gain some popularity of cultural destination and landmark like Times Square in New York. Located at the former industrial site, the center will be honored with a public area and facilities that can be easily transformed and adapted for different purposes.

Public area is what connects the three main elements of the music center: the main concert hall, where the main amphitheater is located,  business and recording studios, outside amphitheater, which is scheduled for mobile scene, called theatre-robot and “the hall of Fame”, which is two-storey facility for exhibitions and events of a commercial nature. Since flexibility is at the heart of the project, all facilities could be totally adapted to the needs of different events, so to accommodate audiences between 3000 and 15,000 people. Materials are selected according to their characteristics and their suitability for the hot climate in the country, explains Neil Cook, one of the architects. Grand Hall will be constructed of perforated metal plate and a double layered material to allow natural ventilation and passive cooling. The Hall of Fame will be a lightweight structure made of a transparent material or glass LED and will be equipped with projection screens. Rectangular hall or the also called theater-robot will be constructed of pipes through which they can easily be transformed into another structure. The construction of the music center is expected to begin in 2012 and end in 2014.