editorial

A bold new cultural venue in Taiwan gives art and architecture enthusiasts another reason to venture beyond Taipei.
<figure id="attachment_153959" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-153959" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-153959" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Green-Museumbrary-Taiwan-Exterior-Aerial-View.-Image-courtesy-of-Taichung-Art-Museum.-©-Iwan-Baan.jpeg" alt="An aerial view of the new Taichung Green Museumbrary complex." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Green-Museumbrary-Taiwan-Exterior-Aerial-View.-Image-courtesy-of-Taichung-Art-Museum.-©-Iwan-Baan.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Green-Museumbrary-Taiwan-Exterior-Aerial-View.-Image-courtesy-of-Taichung-Art-Museum.-©-Iwan-Baan-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Green-Museumbrary-Taiwan-Exterior-Aerial-View.-Image-courtesy-of-Taichung-Art-Museum.-©-Iwan-Baan-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Green-Museumbrary-Taiwan-Exterior-Aerial-View.-Image-courtesy-of-Taichung-Art-Museum.-©-Iwan-Baan-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-153959" class="wp-caption-text">An aerial view of the new Taichung Green Museumbrary complex. (Courtesy of Taichung Art Museum © Iwan Baan)</figcaption></figure>
Known for its food scene and buzzing night markets, the central Taiwanese city of Taichung has recast itself as a cultural hub over the past decade or so. But while this flowering of art galleries, large-scale creative events, and starchitect-designed museums and performance venues has yet to gain global attention, that may be about to change with the recent debut of the city’s most ambitious architectural showpiece yet.
Anchoring one end of the 67-hectare Taichung Central Park—part of a new urban development on the site of a former military airport—the <a href="https://tgm.taichung.gov.tw/en/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taichung Green Museumbrary</a> integrates the city’s central library with the Taichung Art Museum. It ranks as the biggest cultural project to date by Japanese architecture practice SANAA, whose Pritzker Prize–winning founders Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have imparted their signature minimalism and fluid style to the 58,000-square-meter complex.
SANAA teamed up with Taiwanese firm Ricky Liu and Associates to design the twin institutions as a cluster of eight cubic buildings wrapped in aluminum mesh facades and raised on columns over shaded plazas. The interconnected spaces dissolve the boundaries between museum and library, indoors and outdoors. Curving walkways afford views of the surrounding park, as does a rooftop garden.
The museum’s public spaces welcome guests with site-specific commissions. Michael Lin lifts floral patterns from old Taiwanese textiles in his large-scale painting series Processed, while Korean artist Haegue Yang’s installation Liquid Votive–Tree Shade Triad acts as centerpiece of the 27-meter atrium.
In the galleries, the inaugural show examines our complex relationship with nature through works by more than 70 global artists. Running until April 12, “A Call of All Beings: See you tomorrow, same time, same place” spans everything from Chen Ting-shih’s 1972 print The First Crack of Thunder to beaded Haitian Vodou flags and original The Little Prince manuscripts by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Video installations from Taipei-based multimedia artist Au Sow Yee reflect on the colonial histories of <a href="https://destinasian.com/travel-guide/taiwan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taiwan</a> and her native Malaysia through a blend of botany and politics.
The arrival of such a significant museum—Taichung’s fourth cultural venue by Japanese starchitects, following projects by Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and Kengo Kuma—signals the growing clout of a city stepping out from Taipei’s shadow.
<figure id="attachment_153957" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-153957" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-153957" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-‘Folds-and-flows-by-ANPIS-FOTO.jpeg" alt="Folds and flows, an installation at the Taichung Art Museum’s inaugural exhibition." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-‘Folds-and-flows-by-ANPIS-FOTO.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-‘Folds-and-flows-by-ANPIS-FOTO-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-‘Folds-and-flows-by-ANPIS-FOTO-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-‘Folds-and-flows-by-ANPIS-FOTO-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-153957" class="wp-caption-text">Folds and flows, an installation at the Taichung Art Museum’s inaugural exhibition. (Photo: ANPIS FOTO)</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_153958" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-153958" style="width: 1800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-153958" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning.jpeg" alt="Korean artist Haegue Yang beneath her site-specific commission for the Taichung Art Museum." width="1800" height="1200" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning.jpeg 1800w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Taichung-Art-Museum-Taiwan-Installation-view-of-Liquid-Votive-–-Tree-Shade-Triad-2025.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-commissioned-by-Taichung-Art-Museum.-Photo-by-Chen-Wan-Ning-1568x1045.jpeg 1568w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-153958" class="wp-caption-text">Korean artist Haegue Yang beneath her site-specific commission for the Taichung Art Museum. (Courtesy of the artist/Chen Wan Ning)</figcaption></figure>
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">March/May 2026</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Out of the Box”). Buy a single issue or subscribe <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

Korean artist Haegue Yang beneath her site-specific commission for the Taichung Art Museum.

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