The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is holding the first instance of its landscape installation project Program X- site in 2014, an annual program that will blend architectural installation and contemporary art. The program will run every spring in the public plaza by the museum's main entrance and present three-month-long landscape installations. Every year, the public can anticipate a completely new look for the museum plaza.
Installations will echo the current global focus on environmentally oriented construction practices related to sustainability, low carbon, re-purposing, and reduction. Projects are also chosen for innovative construction methods and exploration of the notion of public space in urban environments. Thirdly, artwork will respond to the government projects Cultural Capital of the Yuanshan District and Taipei City Museum, which are focused on areas where the Taipei Fine Arts Museum is located. Organizers at the museum anticipate the program, by presenting the creativity of participating artists, will stimulate wider and more imaginative thinking about architecture and promote architecture as an important urban art form. For this year's inaugural iteration of the program, 29 applications were received, which produced ten groups of finalists and one winning team.
The presentation concept for the winning submission Landscape of Boundary by C.J.S. Architecture-Art Studio refers to bamboo scaffolding. For their installation, the group transformed the repeating grid composition seen in bamboo structures originally used in Taiwan for temporary scaffolding at construction sites, supports for billboards, or underwater racks supporting commercial oyster beds, into an architectural system of bodily sensations. The installation comprises a gridded bamboo forest, paths surrounding the plaza and metal handrails to delineate a field of perceptions and manifest a larger than life atmosphere that suggests a scaffold city.
The scaffold structure is attached to the museum building, constructed in the same dimensions as the museum lobby, and realized with a great quantity of moso and makino bamboo, two varieties which are indigenous to Taiwan. The unique resilience of bamboo immediately transfers any force that is applied to the structure as visitors walk through this experiential world, which creates the dreamlike sensation of being situated between the real and subconscious. The quality of the bamboo will change over time; its color gradually fading from deep green to light tan, and the entire installation, which suggests a natural landscape, will record the temporal sequence of the topography at the site.
The C.J.S. team is committed to open-ended experimentation, and has built the bamboo structure without outsourcing their design to contractors. The process proceeds from transport, processing of materials, and welding to construction, and is, by turns, similar to a factory operation or guerrilla action. Landscape of Boundary involves nearly 100 students from the Chung Yuan Christian University Architecture Department, who started from a visual orientation and over the course of several weeks became familiar with changes in the bamboo by working on the material with different machinery. The project fosters hands-on experience, which furthers the education of a young generation of architects by encouraging them to reconsider how architectural traditions are learned, carried forward, and presented in the concepts of the C.J.S. team. Furthermore, Landscape of Boundary project is the beginning of a multifaceted dialog for participants and viewers.
Artists: Chen Xuan-Cheng, Jen Tah-Sien, Su Fu-Yuan Architecture Firm
*image (left)
© Chen Xuan-Cheng, Jen Tah-Sien, Su Fu-Yuan Architecture Firm
