Taipei Fine Arts Museum Audio Guide

Taipei Fine Arts Museum: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Taipei Fine Arts Museum

   Welcome to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, set within the Taipei Expo Park, along Zhongshan North Road in the Zhongshan District of Taipei. Its address is number 181, Section 3, Zhongshan North Road. This was the first public modern art museum in Taiwan, and it opened to the public in 1983. Before you step inside, take a moment with the building itself. It does not look like a quiet box for paintings. It looks like a stack of suspended galleries wrapped into a tube, and that shape was designed to carry meaning. Over the next few stops, we will look at where the museum came from, how its architecture tells a story, and how it grew into a place that sends Taiwanese art out into the world. The museum also gets you thinking about the ground beneath it. This site was once home to the United States Taiwan Defense Command. A place that once belonged to military planning became a place for contemporary creativity, and that change is a good thread to follow as we go.

2. 02

   From Defense Command to Art Museum

   The story starts in 1976. The central government decided to enhance the cultural life of the city, and the Taipei Municipal Government began planning a high-standard museum. The result was the first museum in Taiwan built for contemporary art exhibitions. The site gives the story its twist. The museum stands on the former grounds of the United States Taiwan Defense Command. Its opening marked a milestone for the local art scene. Artists suddenly had a public venue designed for modern work, and visitors had a place to meet new forms of creativity face to face. The museum's mission is clear. It aims to promote the research, development and popularization of Taiwanese modern art. It also wants to raise public awareness of and participation in contemporary art, and to build a society with richer artistic and cultural literacy. Think of it as a museum that wants you to join the conversation, not just stand quietly in front of a wall label.

3. 03

   A Fountain in Concrete: The Architecture

   The architect was Kao Er-Pan, and his design is one of the most distinctive in Taipei. It has been described as a local interpretation of the Japanese Metabolist Movement, a school of thought that treats buildings as living, growing structures. Now look for the Chinese roots. The design borrows from traditional Chinese architecture through the structure of piled brackets, translated into suspended corridors. Together these corridors form a tube-shaped composition. That tube is identical to the Chinese character for fountain, which gives the museum a poetic idea to live up to: a living source of culture, always flowing. Inside, symmetrical, suspended gallery spaces spread across each floor. Grand windows frame views over Yuan Shan, the fine arts park area and the surrounding city. The plan also combines the building with a natural courtyard, which matched the museum's original blueprint. Outside, Zhongshan North Road runs alongside. It is generally known as the national road, the usual route taken by foreign leaders entering and leaving the country, so the museum sits beside one of Taipei's ceremonial routes.

4. 04

   Collections and a Window on the World

   Inside, the museum holds a collection of more than 5,000 artworks. It consists mainly of representative and creative works by important Taiwanese and international artists since the twentieth century, supplemented by works from the nineteenth century. The aim is to present a collection with both Taiwanese art-historical character and modern features, continuing the legacy of the National Palace Museum's collection of cultural relics. From its early years, the museum has hosted international exhibitions, often sponsored by foreign cultural institutions such as the British Institute and the Goethe Institute. Then it turned outward. In 1989 it sent its first exhibition abroad, to Japan, under the title Message from Taipei. In 1996 and 1997 came one of the most prominent shows, Taiwan: Kunst Heute, held at the Museum Ludwig in Aachen and at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. The museum has also looked ahead. The Taipei City Government has launched an expansion project to add a new building at the Art Park, with one level on the ground and two underground levels, so that the museum can keep pace with the evolution of art.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on, look at the museum once more and see if you can trace the fountain shape in the stacked, suspended galleries. Then let your eyes follow the windows toward Yuan Shan and the park. The building is designed so that the city and the artworks keep talking to each other. It is also worth planning your visit around the museum's published hours, which have been Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., open on national holidays. There is also a Saturday evening session from five thirty to eight thirty with free admission. The museum can be reached by metro or by bus, which makes it an easy stop in the city. One last thought to carry with you: a site that once served a military command now hosts experiments in art. As you walk through, ask yourself what each gallery is trying to say, and what a Taiwanese voice sounds like in the global conversation of contemporary art.