Taipei City Government said yesterday it would invite world-renowned architects to join a competition to design a world-class theater near Shilin Night Market that would serve as a venue for large and long-running performances.
The 2.2-hectare Taipei Performing Arts Center will be built on Chengde Road across the Jiantan MRT Station. It will house a 1,500-seat theater and two smaller 800-seat theaters, Taipei City’s Department of Cultural Affairs said.
Hoping to make the center a distinctive cultural landmark on a scale similar to the National Theater and the National Concert Hall, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the city would allocate NT$4.3 billion (US$140 million) for the project and begin an international design competition to find the best design by next year.
About 15 percent of the budget will be awarded to the winning team, chosen by a committee headed by Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the department said.
“We are confident the project will attract the interest of several of the world’s top 10 architect,” Hau said during a press conference at Taipei City Hall yesterday.
“We want the best team, and the city government will give the architects all the creative freedom to complete their work,” Hau said.
Department commissioner Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) said the lack of large performing centers have been a major challenge for the country’s performing arts groups as they struggle to find a venue that can accommodate regular performances that run for more than two weeks.
Lee said the Taipei Performing Arts Center, which is scheduled to start construction in 2010 and open to the public by 2013, will allow performing groups to hold regular shows that run from three to six months.
“We expect the center to help with the development of local performing groups and build up Taipei’s image as a cultural city,” she said.
The city government will also invite international architectural teams to design two other cultural facilities — the Taipei Pop Music Center and Taipei City Museum, Lee said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS