Taichung Art Museum by SANAA opens to the public
SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum, part of the newly completed Taichung Green Museumbrary, opens today, December 13th, 2025 in Taiwan. The project integrates the city’s central library with a metropolitan art museum, establishing a combined cultural facility that presents a new institutional model.
The Taichung Green Museumbrary sits on the northern edge of Central Park, a 67-hectare green space within the 254-hectare Shuinan Trade and Economic Park, formerly a military airport decommissioned in 2004. Positioned at the heart of this redevelopment area, the project has been described as Taiwan’s most significant cultural initiative of 2025. SANAA’s design follows the guiding idea of creating ‘a library in a park and an art museum in a forest.’ The building is lifted above ground level, allowing natural light and park breezes to move freely through shaded plazas that provide open, permeable access from all sides.
Its inaugural exhibition, A Call of All Beings, brings together more than 70 artists and collectives from 20 countries. The show unfolds across galleries and public spaces through video, painting, sculpture, installation, archival material, artists’ books, and 24 newly commissioned, site-specific works, accompanied by performances, workshops, and talks exploring human and multispecies coexistence.
SANAA unveils the Taichung Art Museum as part of the Green Museumbrary | all images by YHLAA – Yi Hsien Lee
An Open Plan Connecting Culture and Nature
The plan dissolves traditional divisions between museum and library spaces within an open and inclusive interior. Reading areas and exhibition zones are designed to overlap, encouraging cross-programming and interaction. The library will house over one million physical and digital resources. On the rooftop, the design team at SANAA organizes an outdoor garden that offers views of Central Park and the Taichung skyline. Conceived as both a public landscape and a cultural extension of the building, the rooftop enhances the continuity between built and natural environments.
The dual-layer facade combines high-performance glass or metal cladding with an outer layer of aluminum expanded metal mesh. This silvery veil produces a sense of transparency while improving environmental performance. The facade and lifted volume emphasize lightness, openness, and integration with the surrounding park. At ground level, shaded plazas act as public thresholds where the city meets the museum and library.
the dual-layer facade combines glass or metal cladding with expanded aluminum mesh
the mesh screen improves environmental performance while shaping the building’s identity
the outdoor garden functions as both a public space and cultural extension
the cultural complex combines a metropolitan art museum with the city’s central library
the building volume is lifted above the ground to allow light and breeze to pass through
reading areas and exhibition zones are arranged to overlap and encourage interaction
the library is planned to hold over one million physical and digital resources
shaded plazas beneath the structure create open and permeable public access
the design concept is described as ‘a library in a park and an art museum in a forest’
project info:
name: Taichung Art Museum
architect: SANAA | @sanaa_jimusho
location: Taichung, Taiwan
photographer: YHLAA – Yi Hsien Lee | @nevermind1107
retoucher: YHLAA – Kane Liou
designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom
