After 10 Years, Taiwan’s new Taipei Music Center Reaches the Finish Line

RUR Architecture has finished the Taipei Music Center (TMC), turning a 22-acre (9-hectare) site into a new urban arts district. The New York-based firm’s design took over a decade of planning and construction, as it both reflected and helped shape the post-industrial revival of Taipei.

Conceived as a City of Pop Music, the TMC is a hybrid and multipurpose site dedicated to the performance, production, and celebration of Asian pop music. TMC has three main buildings: the Concert Hall, the Cultural Cube, and the Creative Hub. A new elevated public ground bridges the north and south sites, bringing the three buildings together. The building program also includes three live-houses that allow for simultaneous performances and support new talent with intimate concerts.

The project’s centerpiece—the 756,000-square-foot Concert Hall—is designed for both indoor and outdoor performances. Inside, it can seat 6,000 people; outside in the public plaza, it can accommodate several hundred. A faceted double skin, made of an anodized aluminum cladding outer layer and a gypsum wall inner layer, wraps around and encloses the auditorium. The Performance Hall features state-of-the-art technology, from the acoustics and lighting to eco-friendly heating and cooling systems.

The design has interwoven the buildings into the natural surroundings and the city fabric. The expansive geometric volumes are meant to mirror the nearby mountains, connecting the structure with its environment.

Building Team:

Design architect: RUR

Architect of record: Fei and Cheng Associates, Taipei

Structural engineer (schematic design): ARUP, Hong Kong

Structural engineer (detailed design): Supertek, Taiwan

Facade consultant: Meinhardt Façade Technology, Shanghai

Theater, acoustics consultants: ARUP, Hong Kong

Landscape architect: The Environmental Arts Design Company, Taiwan

Lighting consultant: RDG, Taiwan

TMC urban arts district ext 2 — Courtesy Yana Zhezhela & Alek Vatagin.

TMC urban arts district ext 3 — Courtesy Yana Zhezhela & Alek Vatagin.

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