Flexible theatre design creates new possibilities for performance in Taiwan

The Taipei Performing Arts Center designed by Tenderstream member OMA has opened to the public. The project - jointly led by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten - is located at Taipei’s vibrant Shilin Night Market, providing a place for the cultural creatives and the public to explore new possibilities in the performing arts.

The compact and flexible building is composed of a spherical 800-seat Globe Playhouse, a 1,500-seat Grand Theatre, and a 800-seat Blue Box, plugged into a central cube. The cube accommodates the stages, backstage areas, and support spaces of all three theatres, allowing the Grand Theatre and the Blue Box to be coupled to form a space for larger performances. The Globe Playhouse features a unique proscenium to enable experimentation with stage framing. The auditoria of the theatres have opaque facades, appearing as mysterious elements docking against the animated and illuminated central cube, which is clad in corrugated glass. The central cube is raised from the ground in order to create a landscaped plaza. A public loop – with portal windows open to views inside the theatres – runs through the infrastructure and reveals spaces for performing arts production that are typically hidden.

Rem Koolhaas, OMA Founding Partner: “When we first visited Taipei for the competition, we felt it was a city with an appetite for experiment. This building is a response to that discovery. We put three traditional theatres together in a way that offers theatre makers completely new opportunities to conceive spectacles and performances. We are proud to be part of the effort to realize the performing arts centre, which became possible only with the knowledge, creativity, and perseverance of city, collaborators, and architects.”

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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