082\ Taipei Performing Arts Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
The Taipei Opera House is quite literally more than just a building. It is an intervention that will work on the level of a masterplan. The stipulation in the competition brief for three performance spaces, an opera theatre, a studio space and a medium-sized repertory venue, encouraged the design team to create three linked structures that will create a new arts quarter in Taipei and transform this part of the city. Another key element of the brief, and a particularly inspired one, was the acknowledgement of the proximity of the famous Shilin market, which comes alive at night with alleys of food vendors and becomes crowded by gastronomes in search of oyster omelettes and tempura. According to Seth Rutt, “we found that there was a lot of permeability in the existing urban grain. So, in our proposal, the theatre spaces formed the building core and the spaces between them became public.” In the competition scheme, the building’s volumes are cut back to create dramatic views of Shilin. Researching East Asian drama in preparation of the design, the architects found references to the idea of a trinity: teapicking operas, created by the Hakka people who immigrated from China, feature three fixed characters covered in richly ornamented costumes or veils. Inspirations such as this led to the creation of three separate volumes that are linked by a spiraling walkway and then thinly covered in a glass veil that rises at certain key points to create entrances. Considered as part of Hawkins\Brown’s output, the Taipei Opera House is very much a sister building to the Corby Cube. The creation of an undercroft for services permits the whole ground floor to be a public space, and the ingenious entrance system permits large, complex sets to be delivered without hindering the public use of the building. The Taipei Opera House project shows how architects need engineers. Its intricate and highly specific design is only made possible by the close working relationships, not only with Arup engineers, but also with specialist theatre architects, in this case Iain Mackintosh of Theatre Projects. Again, the landscape architects Grant Associates were important contributors to the overall design, proposing a roof garden planted with blossom trees. Open, green space is very limited in Taipei so the scheme makes a very public gesture of offering a place to have lunch or perform early morning Tai Chi. Indeed this element is not just an afterthought or add-on but an expression of the building’s openness.
Above The three theatres are grouped as an ensemble around the main foyer like the characters from a Hakka Tea Opera.
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Opposite The veiled façade references the Taiwanese symbol of the five-petalled plum blossom.
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