Mecanoo’s Wei-Wu-Ying Center for the Arts has broken ground in Kaohsiung with a festive public celebration hosted by President Ma Ying-jeou and attended by Architect Francine Houben. The new cultural complex will be the largest in Asia at 141,000 sqm, featuring the most modern in theatre technology, housing a concert hall with 2000 seats, an opera house with 2250 seats, a playhouse with 1250 seats, a recital hall with 500 seats, a public library and studios for music and dance.
The Wei-Wu-Ying Center for the Arts sits in the northeast corner of the metropolitan park, which functions as a great green lung for Kaohsiung. The center is not only the first performing arts facility in southern Taiwan, but also the largest investment in culture and the arts made by the Taiwanese government in the last two decades. The center promises to be the new icon for the 2.7 million residents of Kaohsiung and marks the transition from a port city to a modern, cultural metropolis.
