Each and all, now buoyed up by the grandeur of this main entrance as first impression, will not be let down at all on proceeding through to the central atrium. Here is an exhibition area in which a fully rigged 50-foot yacht can easily be displayed, billowing sails and all, and yet not impinge on the bountiful atmosphere of unlimited space.
The atrium, of course, is capped by a vast, arched glass roof—the reservoir for the light that floods the interior of the entire exhibition hall.
A truly expansive building, the hall sprawls across a 27,000 sq. m. site. Though it rises up nearly 50 m., despite being taller than the surrounding office and apartment blocks, it appears massively squat. The building externally mounts via five terraces over its height of seven internal floors and two basements. The terraces allow spacious platforms (rooftop gardens), cut off from one another by utility towers housing stairwells and machine rooms. These rooftop gardens are a conscious provision of secluded outdoor recreational areas for staff manning the three hundred trade display rooms, daily visitors, participants in conventions, and the like.
The atrium is the special trait imposing such strength of character on the building-the very heart of the building. It may be used at any time for exhibition space (as will certainly be the case when cranes are displayed at special machinery exhibitions) or left as garden space (3,300 sq. m.) and as open access to the upper-level lower mezzanine display areas. It is very naturally the central space of the main exhibition hall.
The ceremony was well attended, the space ample.
The first floor of the exhibition complex has a capacity of 1,300 stalls, for either international or local exhibitions. The higher floors, looking down into this space, are all mezzanines; the second to sixth are reserved for 1,000 permanent export shops, and space on the second is set aside, also, for 1,800 export stalls to be changed every six months, while the seventh floor is earmarked for display of products from overseas.
Scaling the seven floors is a series of escalators which offer their riders birds-eye views of the atrium as they ascend. Or for those wanting to more fully appreciate the futuristic feeling the building can give, glass-case elevators at one end of the atrium will shoot them up toward the criss-cross of steel forms which supports the glass roof. One may imagine oneself at a Luna-base recreation camp, the glass atmosphere shield inviting you to consider free-fall toward the sun.
Other functional aspects of the complex include full communications facilities, restaurant and snackbar and, ultimately, massive back-up with the total completion of the World Trade Center: The building itself will be linked by covered walkways to offices containing the China External Trade Development Council (CETDC) and also a hotel and convention center. CETDC, in planning the complex, projected that it would cater to 150,000 overseas buyers and 500,000 local traders annually.
The World Trade Center site is itself part of a greater project: The Hsinyi Development Project, which covers the immediate neighborhood, and includes a new City Hall for Taipei and a shopping and residential complex.
The greater complex will include a new Taipei City Hall and other facilities.
The design for the new City Hall was selected in an open competition; it is grand in a more traditional sense than the modern exhibition complex.
The residential complex and shopping mall are to include a new school and various community service facilities. William Pai, president of the Taipei Architects Association, discussed the development as a member of the Urban Design Committee, a select group of professionals acting as advisors to the Taipei Housing Office. The committee, including architects, urban planners, engineers, and school and other community representatives, has the final say on all buildings planned for the area, down to details of colors and landscaping for the surroundings.
To enrich the variety of design in the development, buildings are subject to new laws governing the ratio of volume-to-land-area, rather than the former absolute height restriction. Thus, taller buildings leave more ground space for landscaping, and lower buildings can maximize on use of lower floor space. It is hoped that the result will be a variety of shapes and sizes with gaps through which the attractive Taipei basin mountains will remain visible.
Pai is ambitious for the area and hopes that it will become Taipei's activity equivalent of Tokyo's Ginza—a lively center of night life and exclusive shops. The area is well supplied with transport, and access roads are being rerouted to ensure efficient traffic flow into the future.
Exhibit space as chronicled in a night photo.
One of the people most intimately involved with the exhibition hall itself is Haigo T.H. Shen, president and chief architect of Haigo Shen & Associates. The building was initially commissioned by CETDC for the Taipei World Trade Center, a member of the World Trade Centers Association, which had been temporarily housed at the Sung Shan Airport Exhibition Center. The project has been handled under the supervision of a special committee set up by the Executive Yuan (the ROC Cabinet), chaired by H.T. Chow, Minister Without Portfolio.
The committee called in Sinotech as consulting engineers to CETDC, who in turn consulted with the American engineering firm of Bechtel in seeking designs to suit CETDC's requirements. Thus the American architects Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Inc. were chosen from a long list of international submissions, while Haigo Shen & Associates, Taiwan's largest architectural firm over the past fifteen years, was chosen to work with HOK Inc.
Shen described that relationship as one of technical transfer. In initial schematic drawings, HOK Inc. did 85 percent of the work, preparing different proposals till the final one was accepted by CETDC with its modifications. Then in the stage of design development, clarifying detail, Shen & Associates participated to the extent of 50 percent, and upon that acceptance, their share of the work increased to 85 percent in the preparation of contract drawings, the final drawings for submission.
Shen noted that the workload for this, the biggest project ever undertaken by his firm, led to a 20 percent increase in staff. He feels proud he has managed to retain that increase, largely by generating the convention center project, a later addition to the World Trade Center Complex.
It is common among World Trade Centers around the world to incorporate a convention center in their planning; however, initially, the only possible adjacent Taipei site, immediately beside the exhibition hall, was considered too small to accommodate an 8,000 seat convention center—the normal "adequate" size. Shen felt there was a real need for one and pressed the committee to evaluate the requirements for such a center in the existing Taipei situation. Meanwhile, he himself submitted a proposal for a convention center of the maximum capacity within the limitations of the site available. The committee decided that Taipei could work practically with a center of 3,500 persons capacity and subsequently accepted Shen's proposal, which allowed for a 4,000-person capacity. With contract drawings submitted in February, the architectural work this time was entirely in the hands of Shen & Associates.
Other structures in Taipei designed by Shen & Associates include the Sung Shan Airport, the International Student Center on Hsinhai Road, and the Bio-Medical Science Institute for Academia Sinica. The firm is now working on the underground and above-ground designs for the new Taipei Railway Station.
Shen, taking in the entire World Trade Center Complex, including the skyscraper office-tower-and-hotel, indicated his approval of the contrast and overall balance involved in the group of buildings. Initial design, he said, had clearly taken into account the site and environs. The stack-type structure of the exhibition hall (which Shen describes as a 'podium') was chosen to avoid confronting visitors to the center with oppressively towering walls on Hsinyi Road.
He points out that the final balance will be achieved with the completion of the plaza on the opposite side of the building. The new plaza is overlooked by the restaurant, and fronts onto another drop of glass-like "water," rushing down a spillway between towering "dam walls" to either side.
Shen noted that, functionally, the buildings could be further integrated. For example, he has a plan for developing the exhibition hall roofspace as a recreation center to serve the hotel, with a bridge connecting the two. Current proprietary rights have, for the time being, prevented such development.
Structure and machines go naturally together in the center's great functional spaces.
Shen also feels that, to date, the exhibition hall is functioning well. There was criticism on the occasion of the first exhibition, a local show held in the ROC's Information Week. Exhibits were laid out in corridors, restricting the usable space and creating awkward bottlenecks. But Shen believes such problems can be easily solved by better exhibit layout. The only functional problem brought to his notice is the security officers' concern with how to monitor the large fire exits stipulated under the safety code; these are easily opened from the inside by simply leaning against the panic bar.
CETDC expects the full World Trade Center Complex to be completed by 1988, and projects 30 CETDC trade exhibitions in the center, along with other local trade exhibitions, every year.
With continued steady growth, CETDC predicts that the ROC's foreign trade will broach the US$100 billion mark by 1990 and sees the island as a future economic hub for the Asian and Pacific region. It places great emphasis on the World Trade Center as a major marketplace for this trade.
Whatever its success as a marketplace, the exhibition hall's pink facade (considered too feminine by some hard-nosed traders, but an appropriate tint to match Taipei's skies by others) will surely attract the full interest of visitors to Taipei's new economic activity center-traders or tourists.