The city of Taichung, Taiwan, will inaugurate its cultural project to date on 13 December 2025, the Taichung Green Museumbrary. Designed by SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) with local partner Ricky Liu & Associates, the 58,016 m² complex fuses the Taichung Art Museum and Taichung Public Library into a single architectural statement. Situated along the northern edge of Taichung Central Park, this “museumbrary” offers a new civic model that blends art, literature, public space, and landscape.
The site is within the Shuinan Trade and Economic Park, a redeveloped former military airfield transformed into a cultural and ecological hub. SANAA’s design approach was to embed the building into the park, “a library in a park and an art museum in a forest,” ensuring the architecture feels porous, approachable, and integrated into the surrounding greenery.
Massing and Spatial Organization of the Taichung Green Museumbrary
The Taichung Green Museumbrary is composed of eight interconnected volumes, each differing in scale and height to break down the building’s overall mass. This deliberate fragmentation reduces visual bulk, allows natural light to penetrate deeper into the interiors, and encourages seamless pedestrian movement between the park and the building.
Slightly elevated above the ground, the volumes create shaded breezeways and open plazas that link directly to Taichung Central Park’s pathways. At the core of the complex, a spacious public atrium functions as the central gathering point, visually connecting multiple floors and fostering interaction among the library, museum, and surrounding landscape.
Materiality and Facade Strategy of the Taichung Green Museumbrary
SANAA achieves its signature architectural lightness through a semi-transparent facade system that combines expanded aluminum mesh, glass curtain walls, and pre-painted galvanized steel panels. This delicate outer skin acts as a veil, mediating the transition between interior and exterior spaces while filtering sunlight to create a comfortable, naturally lit environment.
By day, the facade lends the building a soft, luminous quality that blends with the surrounding park. At night, it transforms into a gentle glow, making the Museumbrary a beacon within Taichung Central Park. The subtle transparency of the cover also frames shifting views of the landscape, reinforcing the project’s seamless connection between visitors and nature.
The Museum + Library
The Green Museumbrary is designed to dissolve boundaries between disciplines:
- Art Museum: Flexible exhibition halls, including a soaring 27-meter-high atrium for large installations. The inaugural exhibition, A Call of All Beings: See you tomorrow, same time, same place, will feature artists from over 20 countries and major commissions by Haegue Yang and Michael Lin.
- Public Library: Open reading rooms, children’s and youth areas, digital resource zones, and quiet study corners all oriented toward natural light and park views.
The mix invites both quiet study and vibrant cultural engagement in one continuous public space.
Structure and Seismic Engineering
Located in a seismically active region, the Green Museumbrary incorporates 109 friction-pendulum isolators. These devices lengthen the building’s natural period and dissipate seismic energy, enabling large open spans and high ceilings without compromising safety.
The structure spans approximately 2.6 hectares, with volumes rising between five and seven stories, plus two basement levels for archives, storage, and back-of-house functions.
The Rooftop “Cultural Forest”
The Taichung Green Museumbrary sits in the Cultural Forest, a public rooftop garden that elevates the park experience into the sky. This landscaped space offers sweeping panoramic views across Taichung, providing visitors with a unique vantage point over the city and Central Park. More than just a viewpoint, it serves as a flexible gathering area for community events and cultural activities.
The greenery also enriches local biodiversity, introduces shade, and helps regulate the building’s microclimate. As both an environmental feature and a symbolic statement, the Cultural Forest embodies the project’s vision of uniting culture and nature in a single, living structure.
By mid-2025, the eight volumes were structurally complete, with facade installation and interior fit-out underway. The project remains on schedule for its December opening, when the public will gain access to both the library and museum facilities in one coordinated launch.
The Taichung Green Museumbrary is an urban cultural ecosystem. By uniting two major civic programs under a permeable, park-integrated architecture, SANAA has created a place where art, literature, leisure, and community interaction coexist.
Visualizations Credit: Cultural Affairs Bureau, Taichung City Government
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