Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday said that the municipality’s landmark opera house will not reopen to the public until a formal ceremony early next year.
Lin, who on Dec. 25 last year became Taichung’s first mayor from the Democratic Progressive Party in more than 13 years, said that the “trial” opening of the National Taichung Theater in November last year came before construction had been finished and the new government must rebuild parts of it in a process that could take up to six months.
“Disputes with contractors and even compensation payments have ensued” because of the rush to open the theater before the Nov. 29 elections last year, Lin said at a meeting on infrastructure projects.
The city is now stepping up construction, but to ensure quality and safety, final checks on all the work will not conclude until November, meaning an opening early next year, Lin said.
Huang Yu-lin (黃玉霖), head of the Construction Bureau, said the new administration has discovered damage to the main halls, small auditoriums and outdoor areas of the landmark designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito.
Huang said that a large number of people toured the theater in November last year, but called it a “construction site” with “obvious public safety concerns” that should not have opened at all.
The first opera house built in downtown Taichung consists of a 2,014-seat main hall and two smaller auditoriums. The project took nearly five years to complete at a cost of NT$4.36 billion (US$141 million).
Taiwanese opera company Ming Hwa Yuan (明華園) gave a charity performance on Nov. 23 last year at the theater as part of an opening celebration, but the theater was closed on New Year’s Day by the new administration pending the additional work.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS