The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1982, the first public museum in Taiwan. It is responsible for preserving, studying, developing, and introducing the public to Taiwanese modern art. Other than cataloging Taiwan modern art for the last century, TFAM continues to emphasize on developing modern art. For this reason, the vision of TFAM has always been on global reach, community network, artist development, and art education promotion to create a society with organic artistic lifestyle, and to increase cultural taste to achieve a world full of beauty, creativity, and speculation.
The museum is located in the Yuanshan area, next to the Keelung River, inside the Taipei Expo Park’s museum area, and it has been designed by Taiwanese architect Er-Pan Kao. The building utilizes grey minimalism international contemporary style, mixed with the spirit of Chinese quadrangle architecture, using fling buttresses, and has adopted traditional bucket arch to create the main structure shaped as「井」. This is to signify living water from the well of culture. The bright and open 9-meter-tall lobby is about 3-floor above ground level and 1-floor underground for organizing museum displays. The entire structure is surrounded by glass curtains for light, and the courtyard is a magnet for natural light that dances with the shadows owing to the passage of time. The structure is designed to be elegant, grand, light, and full of culture, one with the surrounding gardens.
TFAM is on bi-annual display basis featuring both Taiwan and global characteristics, the social ecology linkage, and the incubation of art with open collection criteria, and to hold domestic/international themed displays and traveling displays to fuel the growth of Taiwan modern art. With age appropriate strategies, learning programs including seminars, round tables, guides, active displays and workshops are available for all kinds of adventures and experiences.
