The emergence of the City of Taichung makes it clear that this former civic partnership seeks a fresh, new, and contemporary approach to civic life. As part of this civic approach, the Taichung project proposal called for a museum and a library to be either separate or integrated with one another.
The digital library and museum both provide space for the accumulation of knowledge. No other form symbolizes this best than the embrace. An embrace hugs and unifies. An embrace fosters an interactive public. An embrace leads to acceptance, a strong future and progress: all similarly strong civic values in embodied in the new Taichung. The buildings’ expressive forms feature an inviting ground level landscaped approach, a sweeping embraces of the atrium’s multi-purpose space (i.e. open and flexible for different functions and events) and functions as the local iconic identity.
We have proposed for these two different programs to be interacting with one another at various levels in the project. This interaction was conceptualized as a form of copulating energy that creates a labyrinth of saturated spaces for the museum and library programs. These spaces acts like a lung as it opens and breathes out upon the project’s landscapes and open green park. The separation of library and museum are maintained at various levels but are united in the form of interactive public gathering spaces. Similarly the project’s atrium separates the two buildings but also serves as a visual connection for the people within the space and for the library visitors. The varying sizes and shapes of the atrium wall’s porous openings makes it possible for the library or museum visitor to view upon each other’s space.
We understand that architecture has the power to celebrate and preserve cultural identity, to tell the stories of the past, and to shape the future.
