Article source: OMA

An ancient art form for civic participation, theater has evolved into the modern world as a vocation of the culturally refined, with its significance in daily life diminished. Theater space is valued for its potency for formal cultural productions, rather than its power to include and divert, and to be instantaneous. Contemporary performance theaters increasingly become standardized: a combination of two different-sized auditoria and a black box, with conservative internal operation principles for authentic work. Can a public theater still be inclusive, accommodating the classic and the serendipitous, the highbrow and the masses, the artistic and the social a place for the creative life of all?

Image Courtesy © Shephotoerd Co. Photography

• Architects: OMA
• Project: Taipei Performing Arts Center
• Location: Shilin District, Taiwan
• Photography: Shephotoerd Co. Photography
• Program: Theater. Total 58,658 m2. One 1500-seat theater and two 800-seat theaters
• Budget: Estimated: 6 billion Taiwan Dollars (around €180 million)
• Partners-in-Charge: Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten
• Client: Authority-in-Charge: Taipei City Government; Executive Departments: Department of Cultural Affairs, Department of Rapid Transit Systems (First District Project Office), Public Works Department (New Construction Office)

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