The National Theater is about to open its doors again in Taichung with an internationally distinctive architecture

Text/Photo compilation and report by the editorial team of MOOK Travel Life Network

The National Taichung Theater is set to open on November 23. Its distinctive exterior has earned it recognition from international media as one of “the world’s nine new landmark buildings.” To give the public a closer experience with this beautiful building, the Taichung City Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau will begin accepting group reservation requests for guided tours starting October 20, with the actual tour service launching on November 1. Tours are available in five time slots daily between 10:00 and 17:00. The aim is to help visitors better understand Toyo Ito’s pioneering curved design through volunteer-guided tours.

The theater has also been dubbed the “Acoustic Cave”, combining modern architectural aesthetics with innovative technology. Toyo Ito was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2013 — often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.It was even featured in a five-year Discovery Channel documentary on architectural wonders and has been lauded by international media as one of the world’s new nine landmarks.Featuring reinforced concrete as its main structural component, its most notable impression comes from its irregular, curving walls — including continuous curved surfaces (curved walls), cladding exterior walls, cladding interior walls, and service core walls. With its cutting-edge construction techniques showcasing architectural allure, the building will later introduce extended interpretations of various architectural keywords such as curved wall (Cure Wall), aperture (Hole/Cave), return to nature (Nature), tube (Tube), and boundary (Boundary).

Once completed, the venue will be divided into three major theaters: the Grand Theater, the Medium Theater, and the Small Theater.
● Grand Theater -
The Grand Theater’s auditorium adopts a refined theatrical spatial design that enhances the overall ambiance, elegantly greeting the audience while highlighting their presence, allowing them to focus on the professional performances on stage once the curtain rises. The design concept of the Grand Theater is based on the idea of a space formed through interaction between the audience and actors on stage, bringing the seating as close as possible to the stage so that the audience can share and appreciate the space and time together, blending seamlessly with the stage.

● Medium Theater –
Balancing the flexibility and safety of multi-format theater performances, the Medium Theater is designed to accommodate everything from a proscenium stage — where the stage and audience are distinctly separated — to a multi-format theater where they merge into one. The Medium Theater can convey subtle expressions to the audience. In addition to considering the distance between the stage and the audience, it also offers greater intimacy visually and acoustically, creating a shared emotional experience within the auditorium, no matter what stage format is used.