National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, also known as Weiwuying, (), is located in

Fengshan District Fongshan District, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency () is a district located in southern Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Fongshan is one of the administrative centers of Kaohsiung and is home to the Republic of China Military Academy. ...

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung City ( Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Ka ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

and has been acknowledged as the largest performance arts center under one roof in the world while owning the largest

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks' ...

in Asia. The site was originally a military compound and was reconstructed as an arts centre. With its 14,000 square meter complex, the arts centre contains four indoor performance halls and an

amphitheater An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...

for outdoor performances.

History

Weiwuying Metropolitan Park was once a recruitment base as the Southern part of Taiwan and a deserted military training base during the Qing dynasty and Japanese colonial period. However, the Military Council of Nationalist

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

(KMT) determined that the camp was no longer suitable for military purposes in 1979, which led to the evacuation of the camp. In 2003, the project was initiated by the Executive Yuan in hopes of transforming the area into a national performance center as a part of the top ten stimulus projects of the country. The preparatory office was set up by the Cultural Construction Committee of the

Executive Yuan The Executive Yuan () is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Its leader is the Premier, who is appointed by the President of the Republic of China, and requires confirmation by the Legislative Yuan. ...

on 15 March 2006. In 2007, the design firm Mecanoo Architecten won the design and construction rights. The construction for the main building was completed in 2012.

Architecture

National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts is designed by

Francine Houben Francine Marie Jeanne Houben (; born 2 July 1955)Francine Houben, Architect/Urbanist ...

in a Dutch architectural firm

Mecanoo Mecanoo is an architecture firm based in Delft, Netherlands. Mecanoo was founded in 1984 by Francine Houben, Henk Döll, Roelf Steenhuis, Erick van Egeraat and Chris de Weijer. Foundation Houben, Döll and Steenhuis won a competition to desig ...

. The center was built on 9.9 hectares of land covering 3.3 hectares of floor area. The design was inspired by the banyan trees and their canopies of leaves around the park. The open structure of the architecture is designed to cooperate with the

subtropical climate The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical and climate zones to the north and south of the tropics. Geographically part of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, they cover the middle latitudes from to approximately 35° north a ...

in Taiwan, allowing wind to flow between the interior and exterior spaces. The center includes four indoor venues, which are the Opera House, Concert Hall, Playhouse, and Recital Hall. There is also an

located at the south side of the building and adjacent to Weiwuying Metropolitan Park.

Opera House

The Opera House consists of 2236 seats and is mainly used for large-scale performances, such as operas, dances,

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

productions, and interdisciplinary performances. The name "Opera" refers to all types of

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfo ...

on stage instead of just opera performances. It is the first house in Taiwan with an installation of a mainframe computer to assist in staging operation. The seat arrangement is in a horseshoe shape, where the ground floor is divided into four areas with short partition walls while the second and third levels feature horizontal lines. The color of the seats is a mixture of red and purple along with Taiwanese flowers.

Concert Hall

The Concert Hall consists of 1981 seats, featuring a stepped vineyard style that encircles the stage and terraces at different floor heights that surrounds the

podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be use ...

. Acoustic shells are hung above the stage that can be lowered or raised with three pre-set positions at 9, 14, and 17.8 meters, depending on the musical performances and the band sizes. The height and angle of the acoustic shells can be adjusted for quality sound control. Within the Concert Hall, the pipe organ is produced by the century-old German manufacturer Johannes Klais Orgelbau. It is considered the largest pipe organ in Taiwan, with 9,085 pipes, including the symphonic and echo organ.

Playhouse

The Playhouse is mainly for various drama and dance performances. The stage can be configured into a

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

with an orchestra pit elevator that holds 1,231 seats or a

thrust stage In theatre, a thrust stage (also known as a platform stage or open stage) is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between perform ...

accommodating 1,067

Blue seats. A Dutch theater consulting firm delivers its overall design while an Austrian firm, Waagner-Biro, constructs, manufactures, and installs it. With computer assistance, there are eight sets of elevating platforms and removable seats that allows the stage to be set to a thrust stage, seating area, or partial seating area with an orchestra pit.

Recital Hall

The Recital Hall consists of 434 seats with golden fabric and oak lines, which is mainly for

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small nu ...

, recitals, or smaller performances based on its asymmetrical composition. The design is a variation of the traditional shoebox style, where there is a lower wall separating the center of the seating area. The upper half of the Recital Hall is surrounded by an entire circle of sound-absorbing drapery that is behind the perforated wooden panels. The sound-absorption can be adjusted accordingly to meet the needs of various types of performances while the size of the drapery is depended on the performance genres.

Awards

* Idea-Tops Award, 2017 * New York Design Awards, 2018 * Architizer A+ Awards, 2019 * International Architecture Awards, 2020

Transportation

The art center is accessible from Weiwuying Station of

Kaohsiung MRT Kaohsiung Metro () is a rapid transit and light rail system covering the metropolitan area of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Its rapid transit network is known as Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit or Kaohsiung MRT. Construction of the MRT started in October 200 ...

Gallery

File:National_Kaohsiung_Center_for_the_Arts.JPG, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts File:National_Kaohsiung_Center_for_the_Arts_2018.jpg, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts File:National_Kaohsiung_Center_for_the_Arts_2018-2.jpg, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts File:Pipe Organ of National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts.jpg, Pipe Organ of National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts File:Wei_Wu_Ying_Center_1.JPG, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts under construction File:Wei_Wu_Ying_Center_2.JPG, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts under construction File:衛武營國家藝術文化中心.jpg, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts under construction File:戶外劇場_Outdoor_Theater_(46812104541).jpg, Outdoor Theater File:樹冠大廳_Crown_Hall_(31870505277).jpg, The interior of the Crown Hall of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying.

References

External links

* {{Official website, url=https://www.npac-weiwuying.org/?lang=en 2018 establishments in Taiwan Art centers in Kaohsiung Buildings and structures completed in 2018 Postmodern architecture in Taiwan