"For the past nine years, it's been a struggling journey — groping toward an unseen goal. Nobody could tell how and when this building would settle into the right shape within the budget," architect Toyo Ito said at the Oct. 16 opening of "Toyo Ito: The Making of the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House 2005-2014" at Toto Gallery Ma.
Ito's most recent project, The Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, officially named the National Taichung Theater — a complex that houses three theaters, rehearsal rooms, shops, restaurant and a roof garden — is at last close to completion.
With the final form of the complex now taking shape, this exhibition focuses on the creative process that brought about the opera house's complex design, featuring architectural models, including a life-size mockup of section of a wall, drawings, film footage and a display that charts its development since it won the commission in 2005.