Designed by Toyo Ito , Japanese architect

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6249/1111ej0.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/2368934743_fe7fa7b066_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/2369769752_d2cb490fdc_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/2368934127_b827db6f82_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2185/2370632372_8700332ca8_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3215/2369768866_f6be2d7d36_o.jpg

Aerial pictures from yesterday

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3040/2368940321_24f0d63ec1_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2023/2368940317_925e5721cf_o.jpg

stunning, why have i never heard of this one before???

what is it for?
x

Lovely design! What's the capacity? Never heard it before.

Very elegant

World Games 2009 Kaohsiung official website

http://www.worldgames2009.tw/english/index.asp

wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Games

some pictures from January

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3161/2370653070_ee2794ab69_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3220/2370653072_50d881a61c_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2335/2370653068_9414b89494_o.jpg

Metro Kaohsiung World Game Station , just opened 3 weeks ago

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3289/2370653074_c9227358b8_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2187/2370653078_804595b757_o.jpg

Awesome stadium :okay: PROBABLY ONE OF MY FAVOURITES. :D

Location: Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Capacity: 40,000
Architect: Toyo Ito
Link: http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/htdocs/main.php?case=2009&item=5&time=

http://kaohsiungwalking.kcg.gov.tw/chinese/epaper/files/94new/no52/lib/sport.jpg

3/28
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/chung68/2009stadiumnew.jpg

Looks nice on the render. Do you have some more?

What's World Games btw?

The roof looks a bit like the plan for the Riazor from a few years ago.

What's World Games?

I wonder the same :lol:

Btw interesting shape, refreshing design.

World Games are for non-Olympic sports.

TOTALLY AWESOME STADIUM!!!

it's unfortunate taiwan doesnt get alot of the attention that other countries get regarding construction projects cuz there's been a bunch of exciting projects built and more on the way.

AWESOME STADIUM!!!! MUCH BETTER DESIGN THAN THAT WEIRD BIRD'S NEST ONE THAT THEY'RE BUILDING IN BEIJING. AND IT'S SOLAR SO VERY GREEN AND PRO-ENVIRONMENTAL!!!

Another skeleton stadium but open, and more like a snake skeleton compare to a bull's

AWESOME STADIUM!!!! MUCH BETTER DESIGN THAN THAT WEIRD BIRD'S NEST ONE THAT THEY'RE BUILDING IN BEIJING. AND IT'S SOLAR SO VERY GREEN AND PRO-ENVIRONMENTAL!!!

You don't have to make negative remarks to praise this stadium, Taiwanese guy who does not read any "Taiwanese". :lol:

any updates?

What an amazing stadium

is there a webcam of the construction

Great to see such a new approach to the roof.

Amazing!!!!!!

update on July 5

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn120/waynehuangstar/006-2.jpg

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn120/waynehuangstar/007-2.jpg

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn120/waynehuangstar/010-2.jpg

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn120/waynehuangstar/015.jpg

^^ Cool ! I like it ! Futuristic stadium

absolutely stunning...

Reminds me of the proposal for the New Riazor for Deportivo de la Coruna. Anyone have any pics of it?

It's wonderful.

The Birds Nest in Bejing should have looked like this.

Fantastic. Looks better than Beijing Olympic Stadium

Reminds me of the proposal for the New Riazor for Deportivo de la Coruna. Anyone have any pics of it?

You mean this I think:
http://stadiony.net/project.php?p=24

I like the stadium very much and like many here feel sad that Taiwan doesn't get it's deserved attention.

some new photos

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/7092/1111dx0.jpg

http://www.kcg.gov.tw/ChnNews/Pictures/pwbcnews/4130_5.jpg

new photos

http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0807301002.JPG

http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_080730984.JPG

http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_080730992.JPG

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3243/2716305851_4d2eedc220_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3292/2717124406_584df0cfe1_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/2707262665_0943c59e6b_b.jpg

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n413/william08753/IMG_3339.jpg

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n413/william08753/IMG_3329.jpg

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n413/william08753/IMG_3335.jpg

Marvelous.

Stadium's concept really nice... :okay::okay:

Same capacity of SINGAPORE (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=572778) Sports Hub Stadium (55,000)! BTW one of the eye catching stadium!

beautiful

It's wonderful.

The Birds Nest in Bejing should have looked like this.

Are you sure ? no matter or how beautiful any stadium is people always look for something to dislike it , it's just the norm nowaday no need to compare anymore

Great photos

Weird "sports" for the WORLD GAMES., Bodybuilding????, Beach Lifesaving???? Orienteering????? Latin Dance????? Korfball (What's that????), Sumo?????., They are building this stadium for that???????.

what is the World Game?

wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Games

Weird "sports" for the WORLD GAMES., Bodybuilding????, Beach Lifesaving???? Orienteering????? Latin Dance????? Korfball (What's that????), Sumo?????., They are building this stadium for that???????.

It'll host Taiwan's national team after the games. Though, that said, they aren't a big draw.

Update 8.24 by Chi Po-lin

spectacular and beautiful stadium :lol:

http://0rz.tw/024Hn

Awesome stadium! I am a bit puzzeled though, one of the ideas behind the World Games is that no new facilities may be constructed for the games.

Because Kaohsiung is lack of the large-scale stadium,it's necessary to hold the world games.

This is also the only new one to be built by official. Other venues are original.

This is the biggest stadium in Taiwan,even Taipei doesn't have any the large-scale stadium.

Still no webcams?

webcam

http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/htdocs/main.php?case=2009&item=19&time=

or this website

http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/htdocs/main.php?case=2009&item=5&time=

It doesn't have English Version,but still can watch.

Thanks weijidai

really sleek and elegant design. awesome stadium!! tx for the pics!

i wonder how rain proof this stadium will be tho. i just picture rain leaking thru in between the solar panels.

I don't know how the roof panels be constructed,but these pictures

can show some details. I think it can solve your problem.

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/3509/dsc00149ga9.jpg

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/1584/dsc00144mf7.jpg

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/6984/dsc00146dr2.jpg

i wish they would cover the sides more with the solar panels. the pattern they form looks very cool.

new photos

http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810281133.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810131121.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810131123.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810281144.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810281143.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810281145.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810281142.JPG


http://stadium.worldgames2009.tw/picture/2009_0810281141.JPG

Very nice

Wonderful. :cheers:

Love it !

Amazing stadium. Those Japanese architects really know how to design sporting arenas.

Yes, I agree. I envy those Japanese who are really good at making futuristic stadiums. Well done again!

#1 on my list:cheers:

This one looks spectacular! Stands out from the rest. More like a holiday resort!

Update by boupy

The stadium will be completed in January

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6486/dsc00417iz1.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/3230/dsc00422nc5.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/4135/dsc00431af6.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7590/dsc00437lp7.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/134/dsc00441fg1.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3228/3081982413_29ed997e8a_o.jpg

Wow. Nice! :applause:

Update by paulpao

Almost complete!!

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/2269/1679405167oo1.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4797/1679405174kc6.jpg

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/7663/1679405182xh6.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/1719/1679405183gx0.jpg

You can see more pictures in this site

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/paulpao/13716471

night view update

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/7956/u65lg0.jpg

almost done!! someone's flickr site:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3183559225_bea057ba96_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3316/3184401884_fcbe35d225_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3184409718_9759387df7_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3523/3184399448_74980dfc91_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3414/3184407354_d5f4e43117_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3500/3183564859_45a8a59f45_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3500/3183567159_8f2d2e8649_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3356/3184400308_046684923e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/3184396782_1bde177a44_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3399/3184386976_d310050b1d_b.jpg

alot more photos here in arthurchengjca's flickr album:

http://flickr.com/photos/35328700@N00/page9/

damn thats pretty neat. whats the cap?

Holy shit!! That looks brilliant!!

wowness

is it going to store energy for night games?

nice ground but might look better if all the seats were the same colour or a better pattern

damn thats pretty neat. whats the cap?It's kinda hard to believe but it's 55,000. Looks like 30-35k imo. Fantastic stadium btw.

dayview

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/8562/16003730kc8.jpg

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4677/58882655pb5.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3507/3200792459_9556dbbde3.jpg

nightivew by hsug

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hsug/

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3435/3200795495_789b6d1bda.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/3200775061_d04196d38b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3500/3200779951_4e3bcc1f38.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/3200777083_4173065eb9.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3200762063_9b9050bd59.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3360/3200772081_93ce7defcb.jpg

When does the world games start

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3200762063_9b9050bd59.jpg
one stand is just grass :)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3200762063_9b9050bd59.jpg
one stand is just grass :)

i dont think there's supposed to be seats there. but it's kinda nice if people can just lay on the grass there. but i think they need better grass; the lawn looks pretty crappy.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/862/44856113vu9.jpg

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/7906/10nz5.jpg

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2075/13ac9.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3306/3242754251_23aed16bbd_o.jpg

from flickr:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3313/3262648663_a3feb02833_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/194/3264253364_0e3b0b7845_b.jpg


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/196/3263429403_217b1422d8_b.jpg


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/254/3263428139_90be7c5eba_b.jpg


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/246/3264252338_2d30aebf5b_b.jpg

from Geocaching_badger's flickr album:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/3284192608_25a590937e_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/3284193164_3e988f99f9_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3161/3284192860_797fe67329_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/3283370641_d16f0f0876_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3415/3284190950_0d5bd33757_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3560/3283372087_8841851f17_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3650/3283372255_b70b45536d_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3360/3278245380_b999088c25_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3086/3283371151_0051dc9b46_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3439/3281118702_836ae86095_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3448/3277423475_e417495938_o.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3457/3280317077_74f77749cd.jpg?v=0


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3523/3280317029_5858360be7_o.jpg

Great photos

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3319/3311749772_4d32beb663_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3394/3310915641_8bd17babbc_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3521/3310918527_955b99f43b_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3604/3311748804_c9bf680778_b.jpg

it's just stunning. I'm speechless

wooow

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3360/3278245380_b999088c25_o.jpg


Do World Games have a something like an olympic flame? That silver palm looks like for a flame :D

some pictures inside the Stadium by lfymetro

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3335041183_2534a7edb2_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3541/3335900770_1988a9d852_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3606/3335922616_a2e9e8db57_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/3335960424_1b2fc09a72_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3410/3335962204_a66c171226_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3389/3335207327_ef95c6fd9d_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3362/3336063460_6f4047651e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3322/3336064856_fd75023118_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3594/3335294083_c9d753248c_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3387/3335326097_a840965b55_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3336163138_2f7f8c0f09_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/3335330759_6d6377e74c_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3577/3336174878_ee69515a6e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/3336170734_09bb0efca9_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3547/3335353271_60322ec2ee_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3412/3335361627_4cd97ebfff_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/3336202026_1baa02c07d_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3566/3336207598_759acb8a2d_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3301/3335354451_71aa3c5be8_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3307/3335355717_45269363d1_b.jpg

see more in this album

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lfymetro/tags/2009%E4%B8%96%E9%81%8B%E4%B8%BB%E5%A0%B4%E9%A4%A8/

:eek2:

WOW, this stadium is really AWESOME!!! And thanks for great pics as well :)

What about temporary seats? Will be done? Becouse it seems like everything is completed and no more work will be done... or am I wrong?

from JasonKyoto's flickr album:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3379/3247646462_2780f7e69a_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3259/3247646942_4bc1295e24_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3456/3247647368_278edf7546_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/3247644558_dde3f68f48_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3457/3246815833_ae6f540368_b.jpg

What a great Stadium and photos

completed?

completed?


pretty much. they finishing up the landscaping and surrounding park.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2185/2370632372_8700332ca8_o.jpg



^^

Actually the capacity of this stadium is 40350 right now, because temporary seats haven't been done, am I right?

^^

Actually the capacity of this stadium is 40350 right now, because temporary seats haven't been done, am I right?

yea the temporary seats havent been constructed yet.

Capacity with temporary seats is 55,000 or is that the capacity without temporary seating? 40,000 is too boring.

Capacity with temporary seats is 55,000 or is that the capacity without temporary seating? 40,000 is too boring.

55,000 with temporary seating.

WOW this thing is sexy

very nice and still room for upgrades.

a truly beautiful stadium.

Only 6% of World Games tickets sold, official says
7 May 2009
Taipei Times

Only 6 percent of tickets for the upcoming World Games have been sold in the month since they went on sale, a Kaohsiung City Government official said yesterday.

Answering a question from Democratic Progressive Party Councilor Huang Shu-mei at the Kaohsiung City Council, Tourism Bureau Director-General Lin Kun-san said only about 23,000 out of the 350,000 World Games tickets have been sold.

OPENING CEREMONY

The majority of the tickets that have been sold were for the opening ceremony, Lin said, adding that he hoped the rest of the tickets would be sold out by the time the Games start in mid July.

Meanwhile, in related news, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu rebutted media speculation that the city government was trying to compete with the Sports Affairs Council (SAC) by holding an inaugural concert at the World Games Main Stadium three days after the SAC's inaugural ceremony.

The Kaohsiung Organizing Committee will mark the inauguration of the stadium on May 20 by holding a concert featuring the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, who will perform Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and Beethoven's Ode to Joy, with choral programs by the Vienna State Opera Choir, the National Experimental Chorus, the National Sun Yat-sen University Music Department Women's Chorus and the Kaohsiung Medical University Singers.

COMPETITION

The SAC plans to hold a grand inaugural ceremony at the stadium on May 17, prompting media to speculate that the city government and the SAC were engaged in a competition.

"[The concert] on May 20 is meant to test the stadium, including its capacity, security and the transportation links to and from it," Chen said.

JUNE TEST

Chen said the city government also planned to hold another "test" at the stadium in June.

"We are not trying to compete for anything. [The test] is necessary in terms of the preparation process [for the Games]," she said.

What a great stadium!
It's very 'japanese', but I liked the concept...

http://album.udn.com/community/img/PSN_PHOTO/southad/f_3032547_1.JPG


http://blog.emome.net/pblog/200901/Qjj_20090109114554.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3430/3235849585_44e2446fed_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3474/3236693496_0248264a26_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3438/3235848411_baf2cfe646_b.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3422/3236691828_095313ca10_b.jpg


http://p1.p.pixnet.net/albums/userpics/1/9/670219/49923e598e09c.jpg


http://blog.udn.com/community/img/PSN_ARTICLE/allenchan66/f_2654818_2.JPG


http://web.hach.gov.tw/hachweb/d_upload_chmp/frontsite/image/A0/B0/C0/D0/E0/F0/af1e0552-1fc0-4f69-be3a-ebce5c7eb4bf.jpg


http://blog.udn.com/community/img/PSN_ARTICLE/allenchan66/f_2654818_3.JPG


http://link.photo.pchome.com.tw/s03/earthk/1/123607911766/


http://photo.pchome.com.tw/earthk/123607922416


http://epublication.kcg.gov.tw/happysong/200923/photo04_01.jpg


http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/18315067.jpg

^ Thanks for all these amazing photos.....kaohsiung should really be proud of this :)

WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW My favorite stadium right there.................................:eek2::eek2::eek2::eek2::eek2::eek2:

The world games concert , today

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3649/3548414141_9b01013315_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2449/3549223136_51682755a1_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3540/3548411903_35bda1f3c2_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3548411601_160b7847d2_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3572/3550428297_0afed8cba1_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3540/3550182469_7808ba9553_b.jpg

fireworks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgyaR2E8zyg


world games trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6-fkkx1J30


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0v9fRIqc8w

臺灣加油！

kaohsiung stadium inauguration:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3352/3553476259_37689a2472_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3361/3554281654_101a4b7c64_b.jpg

(from hiroshiken's flickr album)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/3557478980_ea48c36f8e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3340/3556663441_7f1bcddb2b_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2460/3556659845_d4affd729d_b.jpg

://farm3.static.flickr.com/2458/3557464828_cbdde3e80c_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/3556650523_97e4918a28_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3564/3557460560_368a42c201_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3628/3556648075_2561c230da_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3557/3557458112_8cbeef5cba_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3650/3557453880_a432f19fd6_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3562/3556639991_6e21e72287_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3554/3557448482_9030f319dc_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3350/3556636093_7897469379_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3416/3556625737_01df5eec40_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3400/3557435336_8d8f76135a_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3315/3554285904_5d0be93ffa_b.jpg



(fartripper's flickr album)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3345/3558633683_738cf50b9a_o.jpg

this guy is funny. he's the one in control of launching the fireworks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S15WTC4YYcU

how much solar power is this thing generating?

how much solar power is this thing generating?

enough to power the entire stadium and have excess electricity to be sold back to the city.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=37518584#post37518584

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k222/shiyu918/Taiwan%20travel/c5c85733.jpg

amazing pics. very cool venue.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2471/3607508850_9fcef363e1_b.jpg

more information about the stadium:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/05/20/taiwan%E2%80%99s-solar-stadium-100-powered-by-the-sun/

Taiwan recently finished construction on an incredible solar-powered stadium that will generate 100% of its electricity from photovoltaic technology! Designed by Toyo Ito, the dragon-shaped 50,000 seat arena is clad in 8,844 solar panels that illuminate the track and field with 3,300 lux. The project will officially open later this year to welcome the 2009 World Games.

Building a new stadium is always a massive undertaking that requires millions of dollars, substantial physical labor, and a vast amount of electricity to keep it operating. Toyo Ito’s design negates this energy drain with a stunning 14,155 sq meter solar roof that is able to provide enough energy to power the stadium’s 3,300 lights and two jumbo vision screens. To illustrate the incredible power of this system, officials ran a test this January and found that it took just six minutes to power up the stadium’s entire lighting system!

The stadium also integrates additional green features such as permeable paving and the extensive use of reusable, domestically made materials. Built upon a clear area of approximately 19 hectares, nearly 7 hectares has been reserved for the development of integrated public green spaces, bike paths, sports parks, and an ecological pond. Additionally, all of the plants occupying the area before construction were transplanted.

Non-sports fans in the community have a lot to jump up and down for as well. Not only does the solar system provide electricity during the games, but the surplus energy will also be sold during the non-game period. On days where the stadium is not being used, the Taiwanese government plans to feed the extra energy into the local grid, where it will meet almost 80% of the neighboring area’s energy requirements. Overall, the stadium will generate 1.14 million KWh per year, preventing the release of 660 tons of carbon dioxide into atmosphere annually.

http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/solar-stadium-ed05.jpg

http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/solar-stadium-ed01.jpg

http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/solar-stadium-ed06.jpg

Haha, i really like the roof, how it just stretches away from the stadium itself, i really like this stadium, oh and one more thing, is the capacity of the stadium exactly 55,000?

Haha, i really like the roof, how it just stretches away from the stadium itself, i really like this stadium, oh and one more thing, is the capacity of the stadium exactly 55,000?

no it's 40,000 + 15,000 temporary seats.

no it's 40,000 + 15,000 temporary seats.

oohhh ok well, is the capacity 40,000 exactly then?

from various flickr albums:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3631/3661470403_5cc2f6e885_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3360/3662264560_24ee2ee48f_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3601/3662267780_5a6779e623_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3557/3557458112_8cbeef5cba_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3580/3661465111_e82fc8fc90_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/3557478980_ea48c36f8e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/3557478980_ea48c36f8e_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3612/3557485098_db0a996288_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2457/3587818390_23b17e010a_b.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/arts/design/16stadium.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=taiwan&st=cse

Architecture Review
Stadium Where Worlds Collide, Humanely

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — For some of us, entering a vast sports stadium is always an anxious pleasure. Behind the electrifying anticipation of the game there’s the nagging feeling that every stadium contains the seeds of mass hysteria — that it can, in extreme times, become a place of terrifying intensity.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/15/arts/toyobig.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/16/arts/itospan.jpg

The World Games stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, designed by Toyo Ito of Japan. The opening ceremony of the facility is on Thursday.

The new stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, designed by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, features a flow from its outsize plaza to its indoor field. The site will hold this month’s World Games.

Designed by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the World Games’ main stadium, which will be unveiled at an opening ceremony here on Thursday, is shaped by a sensitivity to those conflicting sensations. It is not only magnetic architecture, it is also a remarkably humane environment, something you rarely find in a structure of this size.

The World Games, which have international sports competitions not included in the Olympics, don’t attract as much attention as those more famous games, and there has been considerably less buzz about Mr. Ito’s stadium than there was about the Bird’s Nest, the lavish Olympic Stadium by Herzog & de Meuron that opened in Beijing last year. Nor does it have the same symbolic ambitions.

Yet for those who have been privileged enough to see Mr. Ito’s creation, the experience is just as intoxicating. Clad in a band of interwoven white pipes, the structure resembles a python just beginning to coil around its prey, its tail tapering off to frame one side of an entry plaza. Unlike the Bird’s Nest it unfolds slowly to the visitor and is as much about connecting — physically and metaphorically — with the public spaces around it as it is about the intensity of a self-contained event.

The stadium, with more than 40,000 seats, is surrounded by a vast new public park, its grounds sprinkled with palm trees and tropical plants. Most of the trees are young, but in a few years, when they are fully grown, they should create the impression that the structure is being swallowed by a dense tropical forest. In essence the coiled form becomes a tool for weaving together opposing energies: the concentrated intensity of the stadium on the one hand, the plaza’s chaotic social exchanges on the other, the unruly forest all around. What brings the design to life is that Mr. Ito is able to convey this experience physically, not just visually.

Visitors arriving from downtown via public transportation, for example, walk down a broad boulevard before turning into the plaza. From there the stadium’s tail, which houses ticket windows and restaurants, guides them toward the entry gates. The plaza itself gently swells up to meet that area. Once inside, the surface drops down suddenly, transforming into a sloping patch of lawn that looks over the field. Mr. Ito imagines that during many events the lawn will be open to the public, letting visitors drift in and out without buying a ticket.

As people move deeper into the stadium, the narrative becomes more focused. Concourses and upper-level seating are supported by a ring of concrete structures that vaguely resemble giant animal vertebrae — Mr. Ito calls them saddles — that seem to be straining under the weight above. The character of the canopy (formed by the same white pipes as on the exterior) changes depending on perspective. Seen at an angle, the diagonal pipes create a powerful horizontal pull, whipping your eye around the stadium; seen from straight on, the vertical supports are more dominant, giving the structure a thrilling stillness.

At this exact moment — the moment when you are most in tune with the event about to take place — the outside world momentarily creeps back in. The tops of a few mountains are visible just above the canopy. So is the plaza, and just beyond it a distant view of the downtown skyline. It is as if Mr. Ito wants to remind you, one last time, of other realities, to gently break down the sense that the world of the stadium is all there is.

He is not the first architect to experiment with degrees of openness and enclosure in a stadium. Herzog & de Meuron’s 2005 Munich soccer stadium, which looks like a gigantic padded inner tube, is almost suffocating in its sense of compression. Eduardo Souto de Moura’s 2004 stadium in Braga, Portugal, is a masterly expression of extremes: embedded in a quarry at one end, its rectangular form opens onto a bucolic view of rolling hills on the other.

Like many who came to prominence in the past decade or so, these architects have sought to create structures that explore the psychological extremes that late Modernism and postmodernism ignored. Their aim was to expand architecture’s emotional possibilities and, in doing so, to make room for a wider range of human experience.

Mr. Ito’s stadium is the next step on that evolutionary chain. It reflects his longstanding belief that architecture, to be human, must somehow embrace seemingly contradictory values. Instead of a self-contained utopia, he offers us multiple worlds, drifting in and out of focus like a dream.

I know it's a matter of taste, but for me it's the best stadium built in the last two years.

WORLD GAMES OPENING CEREMONY STARTED TONIGHT!!

the fireworks show was bigger and longer than the one at beijing olympics!! check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J6HnJ_EUEo

All set for the World Games
Saturday July 18, 2009
Source: http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2009/7/18/central/4179007&sec=central

The beautiful maritime city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is set to host the World Games 2009 on Monday.

Taiwan’s largest southern city is also the world’s seventh largest harbour city.

The 17km Love River, which meanders through the heart of Kaohsiung, gives a romantic touch to the bustling city.

Director of the Information Division of the Malaysian-based Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Peggy Chou is extremely proud that Kaohsiung has been selected to host the 8th series of the World Games.

“We are a small island nation but we have big ambitions and goals,” she said.

Like Singapore, Kaohsiung is a remarkably developed and industrialised city with a population that exceeds 1.5 million.

“We are making an effort to be a clean city,” Chou said. “Right now, we are cleaning up the Love River and building several tourist facilities around the river.”

The World Games will be the biggest and most exciting in the series yet; with a turnout of 4,500 athletes representing more than 100 countries.

Chou said the World Games was different from the Olympics.

“It is not about how many gold medals you bring home for your country; it is about the spirit of sport and having a good time. The competitive level of the World Games is not as severe as the Olympics because competition is not its purpose.”

Taiwan would also be sending several representatives to participate in the Games, particularly in bowling.

At these Games, the hop, skip and sidestep is the oddest event of all
18 July 2009
The Sydney Morning Herald

Political grandstanding is upstaging a global festival, writes Jacquelin Magnay in Taiwan.

Fin swimming is a curious sport. Strapping a monohull on to the legs and swimming furiously while breathing through a snorkel in distances of 50 and 400 metres is not really a pure contest something world swimming authorities might like to ponder as they complicate their contentious body suit issue.

But in Taiwan this week, fin swimming and a host of other sports, some bizarre, some mainstream, are critical elements in Taiwan's emergence on the world sporting scene. Some might say Taiwan is holding its breath, trying to kick ahead of China breathing down its neck. Taiwan, too, could do with some fins and oxygen assistance from the rest of the international community.

This week Taiwan is hosting the World Games, a multi-sport event comprising pursuits that are Olympic sanctioned but not on the Olympic program. They include squash, softball, bodybuilding, bowling, billiards, tug of war, dragon boat racing, korfball, sumo wrestling and parachuting.

There are 26 sports in all, with nearly 4000 competitors taking part over 10 days.

Australia has a team of about 100 athletes competing in sports such as the dragon boat racing, lifesaving, korfball and parachuting. It is a fun and friendly sporting festival.

Later this year, Taiwan's capital, Taipei, is hosting the Deafalympics. So is this new direction towards sport anything to do with China's hosting of the Beijing Olympics? No one is saying so officially.

"There is no pressure, not at all," deputy sports minister Chen Hsien-Chung says of the rivalry with China just across the way. Chen says the Games are good publicity for the country and a promotion for local fitness and health. The government has flown in seven international journalists, including the Herald, to view their hard work.

But with the political climate in Taiwan now more Sino-friendly, Chen says the Taiwanese are not trying to create trouble.

So, to appease China and the international sporting community, the local team calls itself Chinese Taipei at the World Games. At the last moment, the International World Games Association allowed the president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, "the authority to preside over the opening ceremony, in line with the consensus of the people of Taiwan".

The opening is usually performed by a sportsperson or the governing body, in this case the IWGA.

But the master of ceremonies at Thursday night's opening introduced Ma not as the leader of Chinese Taipei but as the president of the Republic of China.

China which is very strong in fin swimming, among other sports had sent its own team of 77 athletes to the World Games, along with a deputy minister.

There was no official response to this incident by China. Instead, the Chinese showed their displeasure by refusing to attend the opening ceremony.

The mayor of Kaoshiung, Chu Chen, who was jailed for six years after the 1979 Formosa Incident (the first human rights rally on the island which galvanised the Taiwanese democracy movement), and who had travelled to China to encourage athletes to compete in these Games, said of the boycott: "It is a pity China resolved not to attend the ceremony ... not showing up is a huge disappointment to the athletes and to everybody. I have been imprisoned for fighting for human rights so I have sympathy for peoples with different political views. It is my belief everyone has the right to express their political view so long as it is expressed in a peaceful way."

Elsewhere the political tensions are evident at all of the official World Games venues. The host country's flag, the Republic of China flag, is missing instead replaced by the sporting flag insisted on by the International Olympic Committee.

But the Taipei Times noted the Kaohsiung organising committee had decided not to ban spectators from carrying the Republic of China flag a move that flouts Olympic protocol.

The paper said in its editorial that China had to realise that "unlike on other occasions when Chinese officials have protested or snatched flags out of the hands of Taiwanese competitors, this time they are in Taiwan ... any displays of hostile Chinese nationalism will only increase the negative opinion of China".

Orienteering on the sporting map at Taiwan's World Games

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan, July 17 (Reuters) - The runners sprinted across a park lawn, carefullly avoiding the flowers, jumped a path and bolted for a button mounted on a sawhorse before dashing to the finishing line in the quest for a medal.

It was hardly Michael Phelps in the pool or Usain Bolt on the track and only 300 bought tickets to watch, but the orienteering event at the 2009 World Games had attracted some 72 competitors from 18 countries.

Orienteering is one of 31 sports which are adjudged to lack the popular appeal and geographical spread to warrant a place at the Olympic Games and so make up the schedule at the quadrennial World Games, which are taking part in Kaohsiung until July 26.

"Maybe in Europe more and more people are doing this," said Signe Soes of Denmark, who sweated for about a quarter of an hour over the three kilometre palm-lined course in 33-degree-Celcius heat.

"They might think it's boring to just run a 10K," she added. With orienteering, she said, "You have to visualise what this course will look like".

Orienteering differs from cross-country running as contestants must hold a map and use written descriptions to find objects such as the sawhorse. Those who get lost even for a few seconds quickly fall behind.

"It's not just a question of physical strength, but also mental strength," said Joachim Gossow, sports director with the International World Games Association.

Orienteering began in Scandinavia more than a century ago as part of military training and became a competitive sport in Sweden in 1919.

Although the World Games offer gold, silver and bronze medals to men and women, the obscurity of the sports to locals mean on-site announcers have to work overtime to try and create some excitement in the crowd.

Taiwan-born spectator Lin Tzu-you, 25, would not have been watching at all had her university martial arts teacher not encouraged two of her classmates to join the Chinese Taipei team.

"Most people don't know about it, and if had not been for my teacher, I wouldn't know either," said a perplexed Lin before entering the venue.

Weaving together opposing energies
A snakelike stadium by Toyo Ito embraces the notion of multiple worlds
The New York Times
17 July 2009

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan-- For some of us, entering a vast sports stadium is always an anxious pleasure. Behind the electrifying anticipation of the game there's the nagging feeling that every stadium contains the seeds of mass hysteria - that it can, in extreme times, become a place of terrifying intensity.

Designed by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the World Games' main stadium, which was unveiled at an opening ceremony here on Thursday, is shaped by a sensitivity to those conflicting sensations.

It is not only magnetic architecture, it is also a remarkably humane environment, something you rarely find in a structure of this size.

The World Games, which have international sports competitions not included in the Olympics, don't attract as much attention as those games, and there has been considerably less buzz about Mr. Ito's stadium than there was about the Bird's Nest, the lavish Olympic Stadium by Herzog & de Meuron that opened in Beijing last year. Nor does it have the same symbolic ambitions.

Yet for those who have been privileged enough to see Mr. Ito's creation, the experience is just as intoxicating. Clad in a band of interwoven white pipes, the structure resembles a python just beginning to coil around its prey, its tail tapering off to frame one side of an entry plaza. Unlike the Bird's Nest it unfolds slowly to the visitor and is as much about connecting - physically and metaphorically - with the public spaces around it as it is about the intensity of a self-contained event.

The stadium, with more than 40,000 seats, is surrounded by a vast new public park, its grounds sprinkled with palm trees and tropical plants. Most of the trees are young, but in a few years, when they are fully grown, they should create the impression that the structure is being swallowed by a dense tropical forest. In essence the coiled form becomes a tool for weaving together opposing energies: the concentrated intensity of the stadium on the one hand, the plaza's chaotic social exchanges on the other, the unruly forest all around.

What brings the design to life is that Mr. Ito is able to convey this experience physically, not just visually.

Visitors arriving from downtown via public transportation, for example, walk down a broad boulevard before turning into the plaza.

From there the stadium's tail, which houses ticket windows and restaurants, guides them toward the entry gates. The plaza itself gently swells up to meet that area. Once inside, the surface drops down suddenly, transforming into a sloping patch of lawn that looks over the field. Mr. Ito imagines that during many events the lawn will be open to the public, letting visitors drift in and out without buying a ticket.

As people move deeper into the stadium, the narrative becomes more focused. Concourses and upper-level seating are supported by a ring of concrete structures that vaguely resemble giant animal vertebrae - Mr. Ito calls them saddles - that seem to be straining under the weight above.

The character of the canopy (formed by the same white pipes as on the exterior) changes depending on perspective. Seen at an angle, the diagonal pipes create a powerful horizontal pull, whipping your eye around the stadium; seen from straight on, the vertical supports are more dominant, giving the structure a thrilling stillness.

At this exact moment - the moment when you are most in tune with the event about to take place - the outside world momentarily creeps back in. The tops of a few mountains are visible just above the canopy. So is the plaza, and just beyond it a distant view of the downtown skyline. It is as if Mr. Ito wants to remind you, one last time, of other realities, to gently break down the sense that the world of the stadium is all there is.

He is not the first architect to experiment with degrees of openness and enclosure in a stadium. Herzog & de Meuron's 2005 Munich soccer stadium, which looks like a gigantic padded inner tube, is almost suffocating in its sense of compression. Eduardo Souto de Moura's 2004 stadium in Braga, Portugal, is a masterly expression of extremes: embedded in a quarry at one end, its rectangular form opens onto a bucolic view of rolling hills on the other.

Like many who came to prominence in the past decade or so, these architects have sought to create structures that explore the psychological extremes that late Modernism and postmodernism ignored.

Their aim was to expand architecture's emotional possibilities and, in doing so, to make room for a wider range of human experience. Mr. Ito's stadium is the next step on that evolutionary chain. It reflects his long-standing belief that architecture, to be human, must somehow embrace seemingly contradictory values. Instead of a self-contained utopia, he offers us multiple worlds, drifting in and out of focus like a dream.

Taiwan aims to impress with eco-friendly World Games
14 July 2009
Agence France Presse

The World Games open this week in southern Taiwan, with the island looking to impress the world with its state-of-the-art facilities, less than a year after rival China staged the Summer Olympics.

A total of 4,748 athletes from across the globe will compete in 31 different sports in the city of Kaohsiung from Thursday, organisers said.

For Taiwan, which has been politically isolated because of its decades-old tug-of-war with China over independence, the 11-day event has special significance.

"This is a rare chance for Taiwan to make itself better understood by the world, especially at a time it is being overshadowed by the rapid rise of its giant neighbour, China," Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu told AFP.

She said the city, previously known for its heavy industry, had remade itself and would impress the world on various fronts.

At the heart of Kaohsiung's rebranding efforts is a new 40,000-seat main stadium designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, which cost 4.7 billion Taiwan dollars (142 million US).

"This is the world's first eco-stadium," said a proud official from the organizing committee.

The stadium has more than 8,000 solar power panels on its roof, capable of generating 1.1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, cutting annual carbon dioxide output by 660 tonnes.

"We hope to share with the world our success in environmental protection and reduction of greenhouse emissions over the past four years," the city's mayor said.

Kaohsiung has built a subway system, introduced more wetlands and cleaned up its heavily-polluted river. It is also going to temporarily shut down four steel mills to reduce pollution.

The 2009 World Games will be the biggest since the event was launched in Santa Clara, California, in 1981, the organising committee said.

The games, which involve sports that are not part of the Olympics, are held every four years, a year after the Olympiad.

Events range from better-known sports like rugby sevens and softball to Latin Dance, artistic roller skating, tug of war and korfball -- a sport similar to basketball but played by teams consisting of four male and four female players, making it the world's only dedicated mixed team sport.

New to the games this year will be dragon boat racing. Based on the festivals of China, the sport involves a crew of 16 to 20 paddling to the beat of a drum.

In a bid to ensure the games' success, Kaohsiung's mayor even travelled to Beijing in May to promote the event, despite criticism from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with which she is affiliated.

Beijing still regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, despite the island's having governed itself since 1949 when a civil war ended.

Relations between Taiwan and China have improved dramatically since President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang party came to power last year, pledging to forge closer economic and cultural ties in a reversal of the policy followed by the previous DPP administration.

The Chinese authorities have promised to send 78 athletes to Kaohsiung to compete in nine sports, the mayor said.

As they do for the Olympics, Taiwanese athletes will take part under the name of Chinese Taipei and will fly the island's special Olympic flag.

Organisers said seats for the games' opening event in the new stadium were sold out.

Frame and fortune
18 July 2009
The New York Times

After nearly four decades of work, Japanese architect Toyo Ito has earned a cult following among his counterparts around the world, although he is little known among the public outside his home country. Through his strange and ethereal buildings, which range from modest houses for urban recluses to a library whose arched forms have the delicacy of paper cutouts, he has created a body of work almost unmatched in its diverse originality.

Over the past decade, as the popularity of architecture has boomed and many of his contemporaries have jetted around the globe, piling up one commission after another, Ito has largely remained on the sidelines. He is rarely mentioned in conversations about semi-celebrities such as Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid or Jacques Herzog. He has repeatedly been passed over for the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour, in favour of designers with much thinner resumes. Even in his native country he is overshadowed by Tadao Ando, whose brooding concrete structures have become a cliche of contemporary Japanese architecture.

Ito's status may finally be about to change. On Thursday night, a stadium he designed for the World Games was unveiled to a global audience in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Its python-like form should produce as much a stir, at least within architectural circles, as did the "Bird's Nest" stadium by Herzog and Pierre de Meuron when it was unveiled a year ago at the Beijing Olympics.

Even more ambitious are his plans for the Taichung opera house, on which construction is due to begin next year. A work of striking inventiveness, it has already been touted as a masterpiece. Its porous exterior, which resembles a gigantic sponge, is as wildly imaginative in its way as Frank Gehry's Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Its design was partly to thank for Ito's first American commission, the Berkeley Art Museum in California.

But even if Ito starts landing big, lucrative commissions, he may never be completely accepted by a the wider public. He does not have the intimidating, larger-than-life persona of a Koolhaas. Nor is he a flamboyant presence like Hadid, who is often compared to an opera diva because of her striking looks and imperial air.

Ito, by comparison, can be unassuming. A compact man with a round face framed by rectangular glasses and dark bangs, he is easy-going and rarely flustered. And he has the rare ability to consider his projects with a critical eye, even going so far as to point out flaws that a visitor might have overlooked.

What's more, his work can be maddeningly difficult to categorise. No two Ito buildings look exactly alike. There is no unifying aesthetic style, no manifesto to advance. You can never be sure what Ito will do next, which can be thrilling for architects but nerve-racking for clients.

What his buildings share is a distrust of simplistic formulas. His career can be read as a lifelong quest to find the precise balance between seemingly opposing values - individual and community, machine and nature, male and female, utopian fantasies and hard realities.

His ability to find such balances has made him one of the great urban poets, someone able to crystallise, through architecture, the tensions at the heart of modern society. It makes his work especially resonant today, when much of the world is drawn to one form of extremism or another.

Ito, who was born in 1941, began his career at a pivotal time in Japanese architecture. As a student in the 1960s he followed modernists such as Kenzo Tange as they rebuilt the country's cultural confidence after the devastation of the second world war. His first job was in the office of Kiyonori Kikutake, a founder of the metabolist movement, which envisioned gigantic flexible structures that could adapt to a society in constant flux. It established Kikutake and his cohorts as prominent figures among the international avant-garde.

But that decade of cultural optimism was short lived. By the 1970 Osaka Expo, which served as a showcase for the country's top architectural talent, metabolism had been practically reduced to a fad, its social agenda emasculated.

"All the big concepts were drained of idealism," Ito says as we ride a bullet train through the Japanese countryside on the way to visit one of his buildings.

"It was very disappointing for the young generation. It became very hard to have any outward hope about the future."

That crisis of faith - the sudden awareness of the powerlessness of architects, if not of architecture - was soon followed by a prolonged economic recession, which meant that the kinds of large-scale public commissions available to many post-war architects were gone.

Since the library's completion, his ambitions have led to a startling range of new designs. The concave roof segments of his recently opened Za-Koenji Public Theatre in Tokyo, for instance, are vaguely reminiscent of Shinohara's House Under High-Voltage Lines (1981). But Ito's structure is more animated, reflecting the energy of its bustling, working-class site.

Seen from an elevated rail line that passes directly in front of it, the theatre's uneven, tent-like form seems to be a result of the forces colliding around it, like speeding trains and arcane zoning requirements. Inside, a wide elliptical staircase at the back corner of the lobby draws people up through the building. Big porthole windows are carved into its roof and walls. It is a simple, inexpensive building, yet its enigmatic form lingers in the imagination and transforms your perception of the neighbourhood around it.

The design for the 44,000-seat Kaohsiung stadium, by contrast, seems to be as much about the anxieties of a mass event as about a shared emotional experience. While traditional stadiums are designed to shut out the outside world, Ito's seeks to maximise our awareness of it, while still creating a sense of enclosure.

From the main entry the stadium looks like a gigantic snake that is just beginning to coil around its prey. Its tail extends to one side, framing a large entry plaza. At times when the stadium is less full, people will be able to stroll through the gates from the plaza and sit on a patch of grass at the edge of the field, eroding the boundary between inside and out.

Inside, the intertwining pipes of the canopy curl down and around the stands, enveloping the audience. And while the immediate surroundings are shut out, most seats have a distant view of downtown. The result is remarkable: a space that manages to maintain the intensity and focus of a grand stadium without that intensity becoming oppressive.

Yet it is in his design for the Taichung opera house, Ito comes closest to an ideal he has been chasing for decades: a building that seems to have been frozen in a state of metamorphosis. Set in a landscaped park, it is conceived as a flexible network of interconnected vessels that has been sliced off on four sides to form a rectangular box.

The amorphous forms are not random; their seemingly elastic surfaces grow and shrink according to the functions they house, which include restaurants, foyers, a roof garden and three concert halls that will seat from 200 to 2,000 people. Visitors will find themselves slipping between some of these forms and entering others. The sense of inside and out, of stillness and motion, becomes a complex, carefully composed dance.

It is a striking vision, as beautiful as anything built in the past decade. And it sums up Ito's philosophy about architecture and life, about the need to accommodate the many contradictions that make us human.

It also suggests a way architecture can move forward.

At the beginning of this century the field seemed to have entered a new age of freedom and experimentation. But like everything else, that spirit was quickly subsumed by the competitive greed of the global economy: the money, the property speculation, the frantic rush for consumer attention. Designs that were born of joy and exuberance, such as Gehry's Guggenheim, were treated as marketable commodities, which became a kind of trap.

In that light, the inaccessibility of Ito's architecture is a virtue. Hard to pin down, it is also difficult to brand. By embracing ambiguity, his work forces us to look at the world through a wider lens. It asks us to choose the slowly unfolding narrative over the instant fix.

"I sometimes feel that we are losing an intuitive sense of our own bodies," Ito laments. "Children don't run around outside as much as they did. They sit in front of computer games. Some architects have been trying to find a language for this new generation with very minimalist spaces. I am looking for something more primitive, a kind of abstraction that still has a sense of the body.

"The in between," he says, "is more interesting to me."

Will one of Kaohsiung's football teams move in? They have three, but I'm not sure anyone watched them.

Will one of Kaohsiung's football teams move in? They have three, but I'm not sure anyone watched them.

do you mean 'soccer'? ;)

do you mean 'soccer'? ;)

Eh, Taiwan calls it football, thus "Intercity Football League", I tend to defer to whichever term a particular country uses when discussing them. Personal quirk, I guess.

The World Games 2009 Kaohsiung
Games bring out curiosity, pride in Kaohsiung's fans
21 July 2009
Taipei Times

The build-up to the World Games may have been littered with stories that thousands of tickets remained unsold, but the first few days of competition have seen most venues packed out with enthusiastic crowds of local fans.

Events such as fistball, beach handball, korfball and sumo have all seen strong attendances as Kaohsiung's debut on the world stage is welcomed by the locals.

And as for the fans, residents of Taiwan's second city have a number of different reasons for attending.

For some, the chance to watch some sport, however obscure, was just too good to miss.

Take Kaohsiung-native Huang Shun-fa.

Huang, 29, a chemical engineer by trade, was at Sizihwan on Saturday morning to watch Taiwan's opening game against Oman in beach handball.

While he admitted that he didn't really have any idea what beach handball was when he bought his tickets, the avid sports fan said he figured it would be like beach volleyball and the opportunity to watch some live action was what had brought him to the venue.

Huang, who usually works afternoon shifts, said he was using up all his mornings during the Games to watch as much of the action as possible.He had also purchased tickets to see fistball and gymnastics.

Others were just plain curious.

Student Candice Chuang, 23, was among the small crowd attending the Air Sports competition on Friday with her mother and sister.

Asked why they had made the trip to Metropolitan Park, 23-year-old Chuang said she seldom had the opportunity to see this kind of competition.

They also planned to watch other events, having bought tickets for the roller sports and flying disc competitions.

Some, meanwhile, were there to cheer on friends and family.

High school classmates Cheng Ya-wen, Tang Ting-wei and Wang Yun-shan were attending the ladies beach handball match against Macedonia to cheer on their high school classmate.

And although Taiwan lost, the girls enjoyed the occasion, adding that it was a real honor for Kaohsiung to have the opportunity to host the games.

"We're so glad that Kaohsiung got the chance to host the games because usually Taipei gets everything," Tang said.

And there are those who came just to cheer for Taiwan and revel in the city's hosting of the games.

Student Julia Fu, 30, was among the noisy crowd over at Chungcheng Stadium to cheer on Taiwan's fistball team.

"I'm here to cheer on Taiwan," she said. "I have to admit I didn't know what fistball was at first so I went online to check. When I found out it was like volleyball I decided to come along."

"I'm really excited to be here," she said. "The build up to the World Games has seen Kaohsiung become more beautiful. The traffic has improved and the city is much cleaner. I also went to the opening ceremony and that was great too."

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