Lyrical Urbanism

Lyrical Urbanism: The Taipei Music Center celebrates and communicates the vibrant energy and intensity of the recently completed Taipei Music Center that was designed by architects and Cooper alumni Jesse Reiser AR’81 and Nanako Umemoto AR’83 of Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. The exhibition introduces the complex’s iconic architecture to an American audience through large-scale photographs, videos, music, and architectural models and drawings. Lyrical Urbanism illustrates the many ways the Music Center is currently inhabited—from informal daytime outdoor markets to organized evening-time music festivals—and how it has become an important urban district where Taiwanese music and culture is cultivated, celebrated, and projected toward a global audience.

The exhibition also marks the success of the Taipei Music Center as a cultural event of global significance—an innovative, internationally recognized cultural destination and architectural landmark—as already evidenced through a variety of musical events and concerts, ranging from Yo-Yo Ma in the Concert Hall to last autumn’s “Oh! Shake it!” festival in the south base plaza, that have been held throughout its indoor and outdoor performance spaces.

The exhibition is supported by the Taipei Music Center and the Taipei Cultural Center in New York and was made possible through a generous donation from the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.