The first venue in Taiwan to combine a metropolitan art museum and a city’s central library, Taichung Green Museumbrary will officially open its doors to the public in December. Designed by Japanese architectural firm SANAA—led by Pritzker Prize laureates and 2025 RIBA Royal Gold Medal-winning architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa—in collaboration with local firm Ricky Liu & Associates, the institution will serve as a home to both the new Taichung Art Museum (TcAM) and the Taichung Public Library. The 58,016-square-meter cultural complex, built on a former military airport decommissioned in 2004, marks SANAA’s first public building in Taiwan and their largest cultural project to date.

TcAM announced its inaugural exhibition, titled “A Call of All Beings: See you tomorrow, same time, same place” and curated by Ling-Chih Chow, Alaina Claire Feldman, and Anca Mihuleţ-Kim (Romania/South Korea). The exhibition will bring together artists from 20 nations to explore relationships between humans and nonhuman entities, engaging with Taiwan’s artistic heritage and cultural traditions. Additionally, the first TcAM Art Commission will include new site-specific works by South Korean artist Haegue Yang and Taiwanese artist Michael Lin. Inspired by the tradition of tree veneration practices in South Korea and transcultural spiritual beliefs, Yang will create an installation for the museum’s 27-meter-high atrium, while Lin’s large-scale painting installations will incorporate patterns from traditional Taiwanese textiles.

Yi-Hsin Lai, director of TcAM, said in a statement: “As a newly established contemporary art institution in Taiwan, the museum will serve not only as a platform for local and Taiwanese artists but also as a hub for dialogues between Taiwanese and global art communities.” The project represents a significant expansion of Taiwan’s cultural infrastructure, following the establishment of the Taipei Biennial in 1998 and the Taipei Dangdai art fair in 2019.

Ethan Luk is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.