In front of you is a low, bright-white building with smooth, curving “cut-out” shapes and big glass openings, sitting in a wide plaza with a shallow circular pool.
This is the National Taichung Theater, and it looks less like a boxy opera house and more like someone draped a modern art sculpture over a performance hall... then made it 57,685 square meters big. The idea goes way back to 1992, when Taiwan first floated a “National Musical House.” Taichung pushed hard in 2002, and by 2003 the city had put 6 billion Taiwan dollars on the table, about 183 million US dollars at the time... roughly around 300 million in today’s money.
In 2009, Japanese architect Toyo Ito teamed up with engineer Cecil Balmond to turn that ambition into a real building. After a partial opening in 2014, it actually closed in 2015 for extra safety work... because even beautiful buildings should not accidentally eat visitors. It officially opened in 2016, then joined the National Performing Arts Center network that same year.
Ready for City Center Plaza? Walk west for about 10 minutes.
