Taipei Cinema Park is located at the intersection of Wuchang Street and Kangding Road, Taipei City, where Taiwan Gas Co., Ltd. (founded in 1934 during the Japanese colonial period) and later Taipei Gas Co., Ltd. used to be. After having been left unused for 34 years, the location has now become the largest park in Ximending, after the simple park greening engineering was completed in 2001. The objective of the cinema park was to create a large leisure space filled with art and culture that not only preserved the old factory building, chimney and coking furnace of the gas company, but also integrated multifaceted entertaining culture, such as movies, coffee places and youth recreation in the surrounding area.
In June 2009, The Red House, managed by Taipei Culture Foundation, took over Taipei Cinema Park. It held “Meeting Love in Ximending – Love, Culture and Art in Taipei” during the Taipei Film Festival, followed by “Street Voice,” “Outdoor Movie Theater,” and “Public Arts Exhibition.” The venue provides a creative, and performance stage for youth culture like graffiti art and original music.
Taipei Cinema Park has successfully combined cultural and art events with youth culture. Whether it is dancing or photo shooting, it has become a popular landmark for the general public and youth to conduct leisure activities. With the effort of Taipei Culture Foundation, it is hoped that the exuberant vitality of the commercial area in Ximending can extend to further enhance Taipei Cinema Park, creating a prosperous Ximending as a whole.
| June 2009： | The Red House of Taipei Culture Foundation took over Taipei Cinema Park. |
| July 2009： | Held “Meeting Love in Ximending – Love, Culture and Art in Taipei” during the Taipei Film Festival. |
| July 2009： | Outdoor movie screening at “Moonlight Movie Theater” was launched. |
| August 2009： | Co-organized “Street Voice” with Huashan Creative Park, providing a stage for original music. |
| January 2010： | “Urban Show Case,” a new exhibition space for installation art, was inaugurated. |
| January 2010： | Exhibited “Transformer – Urban Show Case.” |
| March 2010： | Executed interactive installation and multimedia exhibition: “Aura of the Floating Ink” co-organized by National Taipei University of Technology, National Taiwan Normal University and National Taiwan University of Arts. |
| April 2010： | Co-organized “The 32nd Golden Harvest Award – Taipei Outdoor Extra Screenings” with Chinese Taipei Film Archive, enabling nominated Taiwan-made films to be watched by more people, while encouraging the potential for new creations. |
Covering a total area of over 1,980 square meters, the Art Plaza is the main part of the park. The plaza has a stage and an auditorium, providing a decent performance space for artists. Urban Show Case, which opened on January 30th, 2010, is also part of the plaza and provides a venue for multimedia presentations. The plaza, surrounded by lawn, trees and benches, is an oasis in downtown Taipei. You can often see countless citizens come here to relax, while young students practice dancing. Its graffiti and artistic atmosphere make it one of the most popular photo shooting spots in Taipei City. Suitable activities include: shooting commercials, outdoor performance and other outdoor activities.
Located at the main entrance of Taipei Cinema Park and next to the bustling movie street (Wuchang Street) in Ximending, the retro-styled red-bricked building combines classic and modern features, creating a glamorous yet simple architectural atmosphere. The interior, covering an area of 11.5 x 6.5 meters, offers a sheltered space both for dynamic activities and exhibitions. The Multifunctional Hall can sustain electrical power up to 1,500 watts and serves multiple purposes, such as: workshops, classes, lectures, exhibitions, indoor screening, theater rehearsals and a rest area for performers.
Lane 96 (nicknamed “American Street”) on Kunming Street, Ximending, is an area featuring trendy youth apparel and prevailing youth culture in Taipei City. You can find the walls, roller shutters and electric boxes here covered with original Taiwanese graffiti art. Taipei Cinema Park, a new landmark for art and cultural development of Taipei City, is located on “American Street.” The park has taken on the responsibility for combining art and cultural development with youth culture in the area. In order to provide a legal and safe platform for young graffiti artists and to beautify the commercial area of Ximending, the park has partnered with Taipei Association for Diverse Art and Youth Development to organize the graffiti works around “American Street” and integrate the film industry in the surrounding area. In June 2009, an area (a wall) was designated in the park for graffiti artists to create a “Modern Love Graffiti Wall,” which won a silver award for outstanding open public space at “The 2009 Taipei Urban Design Competition.” In the future, the Wall will continue to be open to the public, and artists will also be regularly invited to create theme-based graffiti.
The youth street culture in Ximending has a long history. The vitality and characteristics of the sub-culture continues to stand out, forming a unique feature of Ximending in the urban spatial development of Taipei City.
At Taipei Cinema Park, an outdoor space adjacent to “American Street” and Mingtaizi Street is designated as the “Backstreet Plaza.” With the concept of a youth culture development center, the plaza management cooperates with Taipei Association for Diverse Art and Youth Development to provide graffiti, DJ music, skateboarding, and hip-hop dance workshops for the public and young students, and actively bring youth activities to Taipei Cinema Park.
Urban Show Case was designed by award-winning architect and artist Chung-Yei Shen, who, based on the concept of “transformation,” attempted to integrate tradition with modernity and create a culture belonging to the new generation, by installing a “switch” in the once-prosperous Wanhua District, Taipei City. He even adopted the design of a transformer to infuse the then sluggish park with new energy, which extended to the whole area later. Like a colorful Rubik’s Cube, “city,” “movie,” and “art” create different looks after rotation and combination in different circumstances. The public art installation at Taipei Cinema Park presents stories told by citizens using art and culture. Because its look changes with circumstances, it is thus called the “Urban Show Case.”
The Urban Show Case is a large two-story multimedia public art installation, with an interior floor area of 33 square meters and 6 suspended metal displays that can be combined flexibly according to the exhibition or disassembled to increase the indoor space. Also, large multimedia players are installed on the exterior of the four walls to convey information outward through the screens. It is hoped that the new installation will provide a more diverse performance stage, inspiring local residents and professional artists alike to create art and culture.
Suitable events: exhibition with multimedia, small exhibition, video or multimedia presentations.
“Movie culture vs. coffee fragrance”: when it comes to movie culture, many people immediately associate it with coffee. Art lovers, in particular, can never resist the charming combination of a movie and coffee. In order to promote coffee culture, Taipei Cinema Park partnered with the non-profit Taipei Special Coffee Association to select one of its outstanding members to open a coffee shop, called Yemen Ding Coffee, in the park. The coffee shop offers coffee that won a championship award, a variety of special coffee, and employs professional baking equipment, allowing citizens to learn and appreciate the production, culture and knowledge of coffee when they come to Taipei Cinema Park. Not only does Yemen Ding help quality coffee culture put down roots in Taipei but also teams up with Taipei Cinema Park, governed by the Department of Cultural Affairs, to upgrade Taipei’s culture and taste.
Taipei Cinema Park also boasts the most professional “Coffee Ecology Park” in Taiwan. It has over 100 coffee trees from a wide variety of species gathered from coffee plantations throughout Taiwan, including the three original species, mutated species, Yellow Bourbon, old coffee trees planted during the Japanese colonial period, 2007 and 2008 Taiwan coffee tree champions, and so on. Many of them have successfully reproduced. It is hoped that Taipei will soon become a coffee capital, where the fragrance of coffee blossoms and coffee floats in every corner of Taipei.
Blog of “Yemen Ding Coffee”: http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/cafe-51688/archive?l=f&id=31