The project proposed for Taichung Public Library and Fine Arts Museum has a strong compromise with the contemporary concepts related to art, knowledge, research, landscape and recreation. The building materializes the perceptive and technological ideas related to the information and culture available in “the cloud”, that is to say the Internet and virtual resources to enlarge people possibilities of learning and enjoy culture. In that sense the building will have the required technological equipment, putting together physical and virtual resources but also, it will bring the real perceptive experience related to the atmospheric encounter among art and knowledge. The architectural configuration and materiality of the buildings are linked to this: an ambient where blurred limits exist between different platforms of knowledge and learning and where even the air becomes dense and fully experiential. Visible and invisible traces and networks enhancing culture and creating a common ground. This absence of clear limits of the building and the integration of different fields of knowledge and art expressions organize space, thermodynamics of the building and in-between spaces related to programs. In short, the cloud configuration is the reference in terms of materiality, organization of space, thermodynamics and technology able to deal with contemporary art and culture. The inhabitants that will enter in dialogue through the building will be human and not human, especially birds, insects and diverse vegetal species. All together will create a relational network between organisms and environment, within an ecosystem in continuous evolution.

Authors: Iñaki Ábalos, Mª Auxiliadora Gálvez, Renata Sentkiewicz and Izabela Wieczorek (Ábalos+Sentkiewicz & Gálvez+Wieczorek)

Collaborators: Bing Wang, Juan Enriquez, Ana Fernández Galván, Álvaro Maján, Elena Vallejo and Marina Bicca de Almeida

Date: 2013

Status: Competition project

Location: Taichung, Taiwan

Surface: 62.720 m2