Inside Taichung Green Museumbrary, where art and reading breathe together

TAICHUNG, Taiwan — “The architecture is full of insides and outsides. You’re constantly stepping out, then back in again,” said Korean artist Haegue Yang after walking through the newly opened Taichung Art Museum, part of Taichung Green Museumbrary in central Taiwan. Here, any attempt to draw a firm boundary between exterior and interior quickly loses meaning, a truth written into the buildings’ facades. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architecture firm SANAA, the complex comprises eight cubic structures of varying sizes, each wrapped in a veil of metal mesh that lets sunlight and breeze seep through. Once inside, visitors are invited to drift along winding pathways, staircases, ramps and skybridges, moving freely from one cube to the next. That blurring extends beyond form to the building’s very function. The complex is, quite boldly, both an art museum and a public library — a place where looking and reading are deliberately entwined. Taichung Green Museumbrary, built on a former military airfield-turned-park, is widely regarded as Taiwan’s most significant