Lyrical Urbanism: The Taipei Music Center

Thu, Apr 7, 12pm - Fri, Apr 29, 2022 5pm

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Aerial

Taipei Music Center. Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. Yana Zhezhela & Alek Vatagin, photographers.

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Taipei Music Center. Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. Yana Zhezhela & Alek Vatagin, photographers.

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Taipei Music Center. Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. Yana Zhezhela & Alek Vatagin, photographers.

Lyrical Urbanism: The Taipei Music Center celebrates and communicates the vibrant energy and intensity of the recently completed Taipei Music Center that was designed by architects and Cooper alumni Jesse Reiser AR’81 and Nanako Umemoto AR’83 of Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture. The exhibition introduces the complex’s iconic architecture to an American audience through large-scale photographs, videos, music, and architectural models and drawings. Lyrical Urbanism illustrates the many ways the Music Center is currently inhabited—from informal daytime outdoor markets to organized evening-time music festivals—and how it has become an important urban district where Taiwanese music and culture is cultivated, celebrated, and projected toward a global audience.

The exhibition also marks the success of the Taipei Music Center as a cultural event of global significance—an innovative, internationally recognized cultural destination and architectural landmark—as already evidenced through a variety of musical events and concerts, ranging from Yo-Yo Ma in the Concert Hall to last autumn’s “Oh! Shake it!” festival in the south base plaza, that have been held throughout its indoor and outdoor performance spaces.

The exhibition is supported by the Taipei Music Center and the Taipei Cultural Center in New York and was made possible through a generous donation from the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.

In advance of the exhibition opening, a lecture, panel discussion, and musical performance will be held in Cooper Union’s Great Hall at 6:30 pm on April 6, 2022. Click here for details.

Free and open to the public. Held in the Third Floor Hallway Gallery and Lobby.

Building Access Requirements: Exhibition visitors are required to show proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination and booster and must wear a CDC-recommended mask (disposable surgical, KN95, KF94, or N95) while indoors. Cloth masks alone are not permitted, but may be worn as a second layer over a disposable surgical mask.

Gallery Hours:
Friday, April 15 and Friday, April 22, 2 pm – 7 pm
Saturday, April 23, 12 pm – 6 pm
Sunday, April 17 and Sunday, April 24, 12 pm – 6 pm

Located at 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.