A Museum as Entertainment Landscape

The Taoyuan Museum of Arts Competition

Courtesy: TMOA ©Joe Shih. Architects + Riken Yamamoto and Field Shop

The competition for the Taoyuan Museum of Arts is similar to now what has become the typical invited format for major projects in Taiwan. In this case, 14 architectural teams submitted their qualifications, and four qualified for the second competition stage. They were Q-LAB + menacoo architecten, Joe Shih. Architects + Riken Yamamoto and Field Shop, Ricky Liu & Associates, and JJPan and Partners, Architects and Planners + MVRDV.

Southern Branch of the National Central Library and National Repository Library, Taiwan

Image: courtesy Taiwan National Central Library ©BAF

The primary reason for establishing a “Southern Branch” of Taiwan’s National Central Library And National Repository Library was logical: the main National Central Library was running out of space to store an increasingly large quantity of physical and digital items. One might have assumed this could have all been accomplished by building a large warehouse-type storage facility. Nothing of the kind happened here. The site of the competition announced by the competition organizers for the design of a new building was in a small city of 80,000 in southern Taiwan.

Winning entry (image ©SWA Group)

Commemorating the deaths of 26 victims of a well-publicized school shooting is no small chore. But because of the tragic events at its elementary school in 2012, the village of Sandy Hook has achieved national prominence as a symbol of the gun violence afflicting the nation. Although it is almost impossible to bring closure to such an event, the community did determine that the establishment of a memorial would at least be a positive step in that direction. To arrive at such an important issue as a design for the memorial, it was determined that an international design competition was a logical path to follow.

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